“The economic, security and governance disruptions that followed the military takeover of February 2021 continue to drive farmers in remote areas towards opium to make a living,” says Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which authored the report.
Opium, the key ingredient for the hard drug heroin., has been cultivated in Myanmar for decades, where it has funded insurgent groups fighting the government.
The pandemic and the dire state of Myanmar’s economy has also made opium cultivation a more reliable and attractive form of employment.
Shan State, which has seen fierce fighting between an alliance of three ethnic armed groups and the military, has always been Myanmar’s largest producer of opium.
An escalation in the conflict in Shan has even brought down powerful mafia families whose wealth was built from gambling, scam centres and narcotics.
The region where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet - the so-called Golden Triangle - has historically been a major source of opium and heroin production.
The original article contains 488 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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“The economic, security and governance disruptions that followed the military takeover of February 2021 continue to drive farmers in remote areas towards opium to make a living,” says Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which authored the report.
Opium, the key ingredient for the hard drug heroin., has been cultivated in Myanmar for decades, where it has funded insurgent groups fighting the government.
The pandemic and the dire state of Myanmar’s economy has also made opium cultivation a more reliable and attractive form of employment.
Shan State, which has seen fierce fighting between an alliance of three ethnic armed groups and the military, has always been Myanmar’s largest producer of opium.
An escalation in the conflict in Shan has even brought down powerful mafia families whose wealth was built from gambling, scam centres and narcotics.
The region where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet - the so-called Golden Triangle - has historically been a major source of opium and heroin production.
The original article contains 488 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!