"Myanmar has moved a step closer to completing the first reform in decades of its legal framework relating to drugs. Indeed, the recent publication of two single pieces of legislation is likely to form the basis of the country?s approach to drug control for at least several years to come. The first piece is the amended version of the 1993 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law (hereafter referred to as ?the Law” or ?the Drug Law”), which was enacted by the Union Parliament (?Pyidaungsu Hluttaw”) on 14 February 2018.[1] The second, released less than a week later,[2] is the country?s first National Drug Control Policy (hereafter ?the Policy”), developed by the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) with support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). This evolving legal and policy framework is a clear sign that the Government has acknowledged the shortcomings of the previous strategy, which was primarily based on the use of repressive measures. The military-appointed Minister for Home Affairs, Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe, thus recognised that ?the past approach was very focused on supply reduction and less on other issues, and as a result did not achieve everything we had planned”..."