Opium production has increased 33 per cent since the February, 2021, military takeover, says UNODC Report
into chaos and civil war, devastating the economy and leaving much of the country dangerous and unstable, many farmers turned to an old reliable: opium.
The World Bank estimates that roughly 40 per cent of the country, formerly called Burma, now lives below the poverty line, “unwinding nearly a decade of progress on poverty reduction,” after the economy contracted 18 per cent in the first year after the coup.
The growth of the Myanmar economy post-2011 – when there was a partial shift to democracy – combined with decades of anti-opium campaigns by both the government and international bodies, as well as changes in the global drug market, had resulted in a substantial drop in poppy production. According to the UNODC, from a recent peak of 870 metric tonnes in 2013, annual total opium production had dropped to around 400 tonnes in 2020.
The Myanmar military government could not be reached for comment. Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the exiled NUG, said that administration “does not tolerate drug production and trade” and had cracked down on traffickers in areas of the country it controls. How Myanmar responds to this remains to be seen. The junta likely lacks the capability to crack down on narcotics production in parts of the country where it already struggles to assert control, and in any case, the incentives for farmers will remain.
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