A betel nut stand in Pyin Oo Lwin, near Mandalay. PHOTO/COCONUTS MEDIA
Myanmar lawmakers this week chewed out the civic scourge of betel nut, the mild stimulant that comes wrapped in a leaf and gives users bitter red saliva that covers the ground in blood-like blotches when spat out.
The habit is unclean and damages the country’s reputation, Deputy Health Minister Win Myint told parliament on Wednesday, according to DVB.
The Ministry of Health has introduced awareness projects to educate people about the health risks of betel, often sold with tobacco and linked with diseases including oral cancer, Win Myint said.
He was responding to a question from lawmaker Phone Myint Aung, who is pushing for stronger efforts to rein in the habit.
Yangon’s municipal government attempted to ban the sale of ‘the betel nut concoction’ during an ambitious city-wide clean up in the late 1950s, but it continues apace today. Stray dogs were also part of that beautification effort, according to Micheal Charney’s A History of Modern Burma, and thousands were killed. As anyone walking the city streets can attest, the dogs clearly made a come back.
“Quid [betel nut] is a problem in Myanmar, but it cannot be solved now,” lawmaker Phone Myint Aung told The Irrawaddy. “It will take a generation.”
