While a recent article on the alleged increase of drug-using tourists in Southeast Asia certainly raised our hackles, our impatience with the article’s premise – that young western backpackers come to Southeast Asia to use drugs, aided by a hospitable and accepting culture – is only the beginning.
The Atlantic article perpetuated a number of myths that pervade stories about travel in Southeast Asia. Many westerners who travel to the area are under the (deeply mistaken) impression that Southeast Asians are tolerant of drug usage. This same myth has landed hoards of naïve young western tourists in jail cells, as in reality the vast majority of Asians are thoroughly anti-drug, perhaps because of the region’s history with drug usage and drug wars.
This brings us to a second point: in many ways, this article represents a lost chance for its author to explore a number of truly important drug related issues, of which backpacker drug usage plays only a very minor part. The bigger issues at hand include the role that government-led drug crackdowns have played in drug usage in Southeast Asia, the ways in which drug abuse in Western countries (including abuse of legal drugs, like caffeine and prescription pills) has fueled a the demand for drugs abroad, and the place that drug trafficking (both in Asia an abroad) has in fueling violence.
Did the article miss the point? You decide.
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