Survey results show opium was grown during the 2010-2011 season in 45 out of 50 Shan townships controlled by government troops, while remaining ceasefire areas along the China-Shan border were opium free.

The report exposes how the regime’s policies of military expansion and nurturing of “People’s Militia” forces in Shan State are fuelling the drug trade, as these forces are given the green light to deal in drugs in exchange for suppressing resistance groups.

“There has been a massive increase in poppy cultivation, as well as heroin and methamphetamine production, in the regime’s militia-controlled areas,” said Khuensai Jaiyen, principal author of the Shan Drug Watch report.

The report profiles seven druglords, all militia leaders, now serving as MPs for Burma’s ruling party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party in Shan State. They had promised voters they could grow poppies freely if they were elected.

“If Burma’s generals are serious about making Burma drug-free by 2014, they must stop their war-mongering and negotiate a political settlement to the civil war,” said Khuensai Jaiyen, referring to Burma’s drug-free target date, set a year before that of ASEAN.

Favourable weather and intensive cultivation made last season’s opium harvest the best in years, according to farmers. In some areas, two to three crops of opium were grown during the year, and in central Shan State farmers have even started harvesting sap from the stems as well as the pods.

Despite the increased availability of opium and heroin, methamphetamine or “yaba” has become the most popular drug among youth in Shan State, where the cost of a pill is as low as 1,500 kyat (US$1.7) compared to 100 baht (US$3.3) per pill across the border in Thailand.

Shan Drug Watch is a project under the Shan Herald Agency for News.

Contact person: Khuensai Jaiyen +66 81 531 2837