Opium cultivation in Southeast Asia has doubled over the last six years as growing demand for heroin in China and the rest of Asia lures more farmers to grow poppies, the UN said on Wednesday.
Opiate users in East Asia and the Pacific now account for about a quarter of the world total, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report.
China alone has more than a million registered heroin users, and consumes most of the drug in the region, it said.
With prices rising, cultivation in Laos soared 66 per cent to 6,800 hectares this year, and by 17 per cent to 51,000 hectares in Myanmar, the world’s second largest producer after Afghanistan, according to UN estimates.
“Overall, opium poppy cultivation in the region has thus doubled since 2006,” despite officials reports from Laos, Myanmar and Thailand that nearly 25,000 hectares of poppies were eradicated this year, the report said.
The study estimates opium produced by Laos and Myanmar to be worth US$431 million this year, a third more than the previous year. Farm-gate prices per kilogram reached US$1,800 in Laos amid scarce supply, and US$520 in Myanmar.