At best, the farm belt is an example of what could happen to Cambodia if yaba spreads further without controls.
What everyone agrees on is that Cambodia is a front line that has been breached and the yaba problem is growing faster here than perhaps any other country in the world.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) first reported a massive increase in methamphetamine abuse in Cambodia in 2000. With 60 per cent of its population aged under 25 and the majority employed in labor intensive jobs requiring long hours and paying little money, methamphetamines -- which produce a feeling of euphoria, hyperactivity and dull pain and fatigue and sell for as little as US$1.25 per tablet -- quickly gained popularity.
Now, in the wake of Thailand's crackdown on drugs, Cambodia has become the new market with little or no resistance from the country's poor social, legal, judicial and health infrastructure.
Initially the drug of choice for sex workers and laborers, it has quickly spread to the upper echelons and emerged as a popular party drug for the country's growing middle class of disco hopping youth.
"I would call it catastrophic," says Graham Shaw of Phnom Penh's UN Office on Drugs and Crime. "Yaba will potentially claim more Cambodian lives than the Khmer Rouge. It is potentially worse than a war."
The more insidious effects of the drug such as the spread of HIV/AIDS, or engaging in unsafe sex while under its heady influence may not be fully felt for years, warns Shaw.
Also of concern is the cost to society through lost lives, illness and financial factors such as the laundering of illicit and untaxed revenue reaped from a drug-fueled black market.
"Cambodia is at about the same point Thailand was five years ago, but the trend has been much more rapid in Cambodia," Shaw says.
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