Obstacles in Burma's War on Drugs

Damir Sagolj / REUTERS

A Burmese soldier secures the area after destroying poppy fields in the mountains of Shan state on Jan. 26, 2012

Southeast Asias Golden Triangle is a crumpled baize of lofty peaks and lush valleys straddling the triptych borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma. The region is notorious for drugs, particularly Burmas poppy fields that are the worlds second principal source of heroin. But with recent democratic reforms heralding a prodigal return to the international fold, Burma is now feeling increased pressure to tackle its drugs problem. To this end, Myanmar, as the country is officially known, last week sent a high-level delegation to the U.N. Commission on Narcotics Drugs in Vienna for the first time. However, uneasy cease-fires with ethnic rebels, porous frontiers and rampant corruption continue to cloud whether the central government can successfully rein in its wild hinterland.

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Although Golden Triangle heroin production remains a long way shy of its zenith in the 1990s, when there were around 165,000 hectares of poppy fields and 80% of New York Citys street heroin originated from Southeast Asia, there has nevertheless been a substantial resurgence. Thailand has all but wiped out poppy fields from its territory, while Laos produces a token amount. That leaves Burma, where cultivation grew 17% from 43,600 hectares in 2011 to 51,000 hectares last year, as the regions main culprit, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Jason Eligh,UNODC country manager for Burma, told TIME that the presence of senior government figures in Vienna, including the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Police Major General Kyaw Kyaw Tun, was significant. The intersections between poverty, drugs and peace will be explored in a side event sponsored by Myanmar on the opium-poppy situation in Shan state, he said. They will discuss also the need for support to increase access to HIV prevention and treatment services for people who use drugs.

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Around 300,000 households in Burma are currently engaged in poppy cultivation. The country produced 690 tons of opium last year worth some $359 million, according to official figures about a fifth of the amount produced in Afghanistan. But demand for the drug is rising, and theUNODCwarned in December that rising prices combined with poor harvests and a U.S.-backed eradication campaign in Afghanistan could provide strong cash incentives for Asian drug warlords to plug the gap.

Poppies are a crop of choice for both cultural and commercial reasons, but mainly out of necessity. For the past six decades, farmers in Burmas border regions have been caught up in a brutal civil war the longest running anywhere in the world, and one that has driven tens of thousands of civilians to flee to neighboring Thailand or to ramshackle internally-displaced-persons (IDP) camps by the border. Amid this instability, opium represents a high-yield, compact and high-value cash crop that can be easily transported and traded for food, medicine and even education.

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Obstacles in Burma's War on Drugs