Is it 300,000 or 30,000? Jason Eligh has tweeted the higher number:
"Over 300,000 households grow #opium in #Myanmar http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/national/3436-over-300-000-households-grow-opium-in-myanmar … - this number was @UNODC 2012 estimate. 2013 est. may be even higher."
If every household that grows opium provides direct benefits to six people, then about one in twenty-five people in the country directly benefits from opium cultivation. That is a lot of people. And this is only the beginning of the long heroin supply chain.
Jamie
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Over 300,000 households grow opium in Myanmar
Eleven Myanmar
Sunday, 12 May 2013 02:07
Myanmar will form a number of police units to fight drugs as the figures of households growing opium along the border area of the country has exceeded 30,000, Home Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Ko Ko said on Thursday.
Myanmar will form a number of police units to fight drugs as the figures of households growing opium along the border area of the country has exceeded 30,000, Home Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Ko Ko said on Thursday.
Lt-Gen Ko Ko, who is also the chairman of Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC), told a press conference after the anti-narcotics meeting of the six Greater Mekong Sub-region countries and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
He said CCDAC is cooperating with UNODC, Thailand and People’s Republic of China to implement the two anti-narcotic strategies, the elimination of drugs such as destroying opium cultivation, and implementation of opium substitute projects such as cultivation of buckwheat on the former opium farms.
Lt-Gen Ko Ko said that Myanmar has given preventive measures as a priority. Education campaigns on narcotic drugs are also held for the people, he added.
“We are going to send anti-drug forces to border areas to seize illicit chemical products and paraphernalia entering Myanmar from various border regions. Moreover, we are going to form a police force that will help anti-drug forces in Mekong Region. We have already planned a police navy force in waterways to seize drugs in the rivers of Myanmar in order to prevent illegal trafficking of drugs,” he said.
Myanmar hosted the sixth Ministerial Meeting of the Mekong Sub-region countries on drug control on May 9. Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cross-border cooperation to fight the threat of illicit drug production, trafficking and use.
Since 2007, opium cultivation has risen in Myanmar and therefore extensive efforts on opium substitute have been made in the border areas.
http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/national/3436-over-300-000-households-grow-opium-in-myanmar
