UN Report Says Myanmar Opium Cultivation Surging Under Military Rule

The @UNODC_SEAP 🇲🇲 #Myanmar Opium Survey 2022 estimates that the average opium yield in 2022 was 19.8 kg/ha.

That's an increase of 4️⃣1️⃣% compared to 2021.

More: https://t.co/WhNF67kYAG pic.twitter.com/JrJtaWaRqY

— UN Geneva (@UNGeneva) January 26, 2023

BBC: Opium production in Myanmar surges to nine-year high 

The production of opium increased sharply in Myanmar, rising to a nine-year high, according to the UN. 

It touched nearly 795 metric tonnes in 2022, nearly double the production in 2021 - 423 metric tonnes - the year of the military coup. 

The UN believes this is driven by economic hardship and insecurity, along with higher global prices for the opium resin that is used to make heroin. 

The coup plunged much of Myanmar into a bloody civil war that still continues. 

"Economic, security and governance disruptions that followed the military takeover of February 2021 have converged, and farmers in remote, often conflict-prone areas in northern Shan and border states, have had little option but to move back to opium," said Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).  

Read more ....  

WNU Editor: Afghanistan's opium production is also up .... Afghanistan: Opium cultivation up nearly a third, warns UNODC (UN News). 

UN Report Says Myanmar Opium Cultivation Surging Under Military Rule  

Myanmar opium cultivation surged 33% amid violence, UN finds -- AP  

Myanmar opium cultivation surging under military rule - UN report -- Reuters  

Myanmar opium farming booming after coup: UN -- AFP  

Opium cultivation surges since Myanmar military seized power: UN -- Al Jazeera

Taliban Continue To Permit The Afghan Opium Business To Thrive

 

Mint/Wall Street Journal: Afghanistan’s Opium Business Cranks Up as the Taliban Look the Other Way 

Drug markets open and farmers plant more poppies with drought and sanctions crippling the economy 

Afghanistan’s opium industry—the main source of heroin sold in the West—is revving back up. Here in Talukan, dozens of merchants openly trade different grades of opium in a busy new market that has sprung up since the Taliban’s Aug. 15 victory. 

Plastic bags filled with viscous brown liquid are on display next to metal bowls filled with a jellylike substance as well as solid dark bricks of the narcotic. 

White banners praising the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate fly from every shop. In this and other districts of southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, the Taliban movement’s cradle, farmers say they are starting to plant poppies on land where they used to grow wheat or corn because a combination of drought, international sanctions and border closures has made legal crops unprofitable.

“Everyone is poor here, and will become even poorer if we don’t grow poppies. There is no alternative: 

Our other produce simply has no market," said Salih Mohammad, a 55-year-old father of seven. He said he increased the land under poppy cultivation from 2.5 to 4 acres, or half of his leasehold, this month: 

“There is no doubt that people here will grow more poppies this year than in the past." 

In late August, shortly after overthrowing the U.S.-backed Afghan republic, the Taliban promised that they would eradicate the country’s multibillion-dollar drug industry, which accounts for 85% of world-wide opium production. 

Three months later, as the poppy planting season begins, the opposite is happening.  

Read more ....  

WNU Editor: Another Taliban broken promise. 

 Bottom line.

The Taliban need the money, and the control that goes with it. 

More News On The Taliban Permitting The Afghan Opium Business To Thrive  

In Hard Times, Afghan Farmers Are Turning to Opium for Security -- New York Times Post/New York Times  

Afghan poppy season returns in force under Taliban rule -- Nikkei Asia  

The Narco-Terrorist Taliban -- Brahma Chellaney, Project Syndicate

Since The Taliban Takeover Of Afghanistan, Opium Prices Have Increased 300%

 

France 24: Prices soar at opium market in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan 

While the economy teeters on the brink of collapse, vendors at an opium market in southern Afghanistan say prices for their goods have skyrocketed since the Taliban takeover. 

Plunging his knife into a large plastic bag filled with four kilograms (nine pounds) of what looks like brown mud, Amanullah, who asked to use a fake name, extracts a lump and places it in a small cup suspended over a primus flame. 

The poppy resin quickly begins to boil and liquify, and he and his partner Mohammad Masoom can display to buyers that their opium is pure.  

Read more ....  

Update: Getting high: Afghan opium prices soar after Taliban takeover (Euronews)  

WNU Editor: The Taliban have promised to wipe out the opium trade. But will they? 

I always enjoy saying in this blog that it is always about the money. That is why I believe the Taliban are not going to kill this cash crop (for now) .... Afghanistan is the world's opium king. Can the Taliban afford to kill off their 'un-Islamic' cash cow? (Kara Fox, CNN).

Taliban Says It's Moving to Ban Opium Production

AFP  

PJ Media: Taliban Says It's Moving to Ban Opium Production to Encourage International Recognition 

The Taliban says it is moving to ban opium production in Afghanistan in an effort to secure international recognition for the regime. 

But will the world forget the previous 20 years the Taliban benefited financially from the drug trade? 

The Taliban standardized and grew the opium industry to facilitate the financing of their insurgency. 

They recruited poppy farmers and taxed their crops, undermining U.S. and Afghan government efforts to destroy the drug trade.  

Read more ....  

Update #1: Taliban Move to Ban Opium Production in Afghanistan -- WSJ  

Update #2: Taliban Move To Ban Opium Production, But Could It Majorly Backfire? -- South Front  

WNU Editor: It looks like the Taliban are serious .... Opium prices triple in Afghanistan after Taliban announces poppy ban (The Telegraph).

Mexican Cartels Are Abandoning The Smuggling Of Marijuana In Favor Of Heroin

Parker McMillan looks over products at MedMen in West Hollywood, Calif., on Jan. 1, 2018, when it became legal in to sell recreational marijuana. Laws allowing marijuana in states like Colorado, Washington and California are causing shifts in the Mexican underworld that have also led to increased violence as the cartels move away from its cash cow of marijuana to traffic more heroin and methamphetamines. (Photo: ROBERT HANASHIRO/USA TODAY)

USA Today: Mexican cartels pushing more heroin after U.S. states relax marijuana laws

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — As more U.S. states legalize the use of marijuana, Mexico's violent drug cartels are turning to the basic law of supply and demand.

That means small farmers, or campesinos, in this border state's rugged Sierra Madre who long planted marijuana to be smuggled into the United States are switching to opium poppies, which bring a higher price. The opium gum harvested is processed into heroin to feed the ravaging U.S. opioid crisis.

“Marijuana isn’t as valuable, so they switched to a more profitable product,” said Javier Ávila, a Jesuit priest in this region rife with drug cartel activities.

Laws allowing marijuana in states like Colorado, Washington and California are causing shifts in the Mexican underworld that have also led to increased violence as the cartels move away from its cash cow of marijuana to traffic more heroin and methamphetamines.

Read more ....

WNU editor: Mexico has a history of growing opium. But the plant with its distinctive flower is easy to spot, and the onus will be on Mexico's law enforcement to stop it.

Mexico Is Now The World's Second Largest Opium Producer

Sputnik: How Mexico Became the World's Second Largest Opium Producer

In times when opioids are causing more deaths in the world than ever before, Mexico is positioned as one of the world’s largest opium producers, second only to Afghanistan.

The epidemic of death from the use of opioids has ceased being a problem affecting the United States alone. The United Nations World Drug Report 2019 warned that Europe and Africa have also begun to suffer from this.

Although the document states that world opium production in 2018 decreased compared with the historical maximum reached in the previous year, this figure is the second largest in the last decade and amounts to 7,790 tons.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: This is a cycle that needs to be broken.

Legal Drugs Are Killing America

NBC

MSN/Business Insider: One type of legal drug is killing far more people than heroin — and deaths just hit record numbers

In just a year, overdose deaths from opioid painkillers and heroin jumped 14%, hitting record levels in 2014, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday.

Between 2000 and 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from overdoses involving these drugs, which research suggests act similarly in the brain.

The most commonly prescribed opioid painkillers — like oxycodone and hydrocodone — were involved in more overdose deaths than any other type of the drug. Those deaths rose by 9%.

"The increasing number of deaths from opioid overdose is alarming," CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a press release.

Update: Drug Overdose Deaths Hit 'Alarming' New Record in U.S., CDC Says (NBC).

WNU: This caught my eye ....

.... Between 2000 and 2014, nearly half a million Americans died from overdoses involving these drugs

If true .... this tells me that more Americans have died from these drug overdoses than from car accidents/murders/and wars COMBINED!

U.N. Report: Global Opium Production Has Reached All-Time High

U.N. Says Opium Production Has Reached All-Time High -- Time

Fueled by the rising global trade in heroin

More land was used to cultivate illicit opium in 2013 than ever before, due to increased smuggling through southern Afghanistan, according to the U.N.

The annual World Drug Report released on Thursday indicates that land area used for production of opiates and opioids, the leading cause of drug-related disease and death, reached roughly 733,000 acres last year — the highest since the first estimates were recorded in 1998. For the third consecutive year, Afghanistan has logged the world’s largest opium cultivation.

Read more ....

More News On The U.N. Report That Outlines How Opium Production Has Reached An All-Time High

U.N. Says Opium Production Has Reached All-Time High -- New York Times
UN report says global drug use stagble but rising Afghan opium production cause for concern -- AP
Land Used For Opium Production At All-Time High, UN Drug Report Finds -- IBTimes
UN agency worried about surge in Afghan opium production -- Deutsche Welle
Opium growth at highest level since 1998: UN -- News24

World Opium Production Is Increasing

UN Report: Opium Cultivation Rising In Burma -- BBC

Opium growing has increased in Burma for a sixth year running despite eradication efforts, a UN report says.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said land used for opium had risen by 17% this year, from nearly 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) to 51,000 hectares.

Burma is the second largest opium grower in the world after Afghanistan.

Almost all of the opium it produces is grown in Shan and Kachin states, which have seen longstanding conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups.

Read more ....

More News On Global Opium Production

Opium cultivation increases for sixth year in Burma, according to UN report -- The Telegraph
UN: Opium Production in Burma Grows for Sixth Straight Year -- Voice of America
Myanmar opium output rises despite eradication effort -- Reuters
UN says Myanmar opium production on rise -- Bloomberg Businessweek/AP
South-East Asia's opium production to rise 15 per cent, UN says -- The Nation (Thailand)
Myanmar, Laos see large increase in opium cultivation, U.N. says -- L.A. Times

Afghanistan Is Not The Only Country With An Opium And Insurgency Problem

Ethnic armies in north Burma are reportedly buying arms with opium profits.
Photo from The BBC

Myanmar: UN Reports ‘Worrisome’ Rise In Opium Cultivation -- UN News Centre

Opium cultivation in Myanmar has increased for the third year in a row, with the number of hectares rising by 11 per cent – a total of almost 50 per cent since 2006 – although production was down due to a fall in yield per hectare, the United Nations anti-drug agency reported today.

Opium hectares now total 31,700 and while this is still just a quarter of the amount grown in Afghanistan and a far cry from the early 1990s when Myanmar was the world’s biggest opium producer, “the trend is going in the wrong direction,” a UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said.

Read more ....

More News On The Growth Of Myanmar's Poppy Crop

UN Reports Rise in Opium Cultivation in Burma -- Voice of America
U.N. Says Opium Trade Is Expanding in Myanmar -- New York Times
Myanmar rebels grow more opium to buy arms - report -- Reuters
Burma opium production up amid tension in north -- BBC
Opium cultivation doubled -- Straits Times
LAOS-MYANMAR: "Worrying trend" of rising opium poppy cultivation -- IRIN