The area under opium poppy cultivation dropped by a quarter between 2015 and 2017, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report released on Wednesday. "It appears to confirm that the shift in the regional drug market to synthetic drugs is well underway, and that the opium economy is being disrupted." For the previous decade, opium cultivation had increased annually before stabilising at high levels, according to UNODC data. According to the UNODC survey, opium cultivation plummeted in 2017 despite the government scaling back its poppy-eradication efforts. Myanmar destroyed 3,533 hectares of opium poppies in 2017, down from 13,450 hectares in 2015.

Source: Bangkok Post December 06, 2017 08:48 UTC