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 Myanmar produced an estimated 647 tons of opium in 2015, second only
to Afghanistan, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
said in a new report.
That figure was steady from the previous year, as was the total area
under opium poppy cultivation, which stood at 55,500 hectares (212
sq miles) in 2015, the UNODC said.
Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC's chief in Southeast Asia and the Pacific,
warned against calling the stabilization a "success".
"Production remains at high levels, and displaced farmers without
alternatives may return to growing poppy," he told Reuters.
Myanmar is a major producer of not only opium and its derivative
heroin, but also the highly addictive drug methamphetamine, known
across Asia by its Thai name "ya ba," or crazy medicine.
The illicit industry is worth billions of dollars, and is driven by
poverty, conflict and Chinese demand.
Narcotics pose another headache for Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) party, which will soon govern a large, impoverished
and fractious nation after winning a landslide election victory in
November.
"Given the scale of the challenge ... she has a big task in front of
her. It's not something that's going to be fixed in a day," Douglas
said.
The NLD's election manifesto contained only two fleeting references
to narcotics.
"We do recognize the existence of this problem but we're too
preoccupied with preparations for transfer of power and can't find a
chance to think of it seriously at the moment," Win Htein, a senior
NLD leader, told Reuters.
Suu Kyi has often addressed the issue of drugs in her speeches, he
said.
Even under an NLD government, the military will retain formal
control over the ministries of defense, border affairs and home
affairs - all crucial to counter-narcotics efforts.
Most drugs are produced in border areas controlled by ethnic rebel
armies or by the Myanmar military and allied militias.
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Myanmar, Laos and Thailand make up the so-called Golden Triangle,
which churns out a quarter of the world's opium.
The area under cultivation in Laos also stabilized at 5,700 hectares
(22 sq miles) in 2015, while Thailand had only a few hundred
hectares, said the UNODC.
Most Golden Triangle opium and heroin goes to China, but they are
also widely available in Myanmar, where addiction is common and many
injecting drug users are HIV-positive.
Experts fear that Myanmar could soon witness an explosion in
methamphetamine use, already common in the rest of Asia.
The Myanmar police launched an aggressive poppy-eradication campaign
in 2012, a year after a semi-civilian government replaced military
rule. However, the UNODC's Douglas said its impact had been
"minimal".
He called for the scaling up UNODC projects in Myanmar to provide
opium farmers with alternative sources of income, such as coffee.
(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun in Yangon; Editing by Simon
Webb and Paul Tait)
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