The international war on drugs continues to rage, with opium poppies extending a slow but steady comeback trend dating back to 2006.The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that the cultivation of opium poppy, which is consumed as either opium or heroin, has consistently been on the rise since a relative nadir in 2006. In Thailand, Laos and Myanmar—once known as the "Golden Triangle" of opium production—cultivation of the illicit crop has doubled since then.South East Asia was once the largest supplier of opium until it was passed by Afghanistan in 2003, which continues to be far and away the world's largest cultivator and producer. Afghanistan's rich soil and flat, irrigated terrain allows yields per acre to be much higher. Myanmar contributed almost a quarter of worldwide opium poppy cultivation in 2011, but crops there have a smaller yield, and as a result Afghanistan produced more than 80 percent of the world's opium.According to the UNODC report, most poppy cultivation in South East Asia happens on "steep hills with poor soil and no irrigation facilities," which hints at the reason for growing the crop: poverty. In Thailand, 60 percent of interviewed farmers said they grew poppy in order to buy food. And while opiates like heroin and opium are a 65 billion dollar industry worldwide, very little of that money flows back to the growers. Nevertheless, the incentive remains."Opium poppy is by far the most lucrative crop for farmers," the report states, adding that a large proportion of opium sold appears to compensate for a lack of rice. In Myanmar the price for opium rose by 48 percent, making it all the more tempting for farmers in the high plateaus of the Shan region, where the vast majority of Myanmar's opium is grown. Getting farmers to give up the crop that accounts for between half and two-thirds of their cash income isn’t going to be easy.The governments of the Golden Triangle combat the growers with a method known as "eradication," which basically amounts to men with machetes showing up at poppy patches and mowing down plants en masse. To combat this, opium farmers stagger their fields, planting several different harvests of the plants so if one field happens to be eradicated, another is already planted and waiting. Even still, local farming families across the remote Afghan countryside now struggle with the deadly, “unexpected collateral damage” of the region’s beleaguered counter-narcotics efforts: appease drug gangs with child slaves, or be killed.The eradication method does nothing to endear the government to the farmers, so American troops in Afghanistan have been looking the other way at least since March 2010. The political situation and number of growers is so reduced in the Golden Triangle, that it seems unlikely that even the least steady of their governments will do the same.Most of the opium poppy grown in Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, ends up going to China and South East Asia in the form of heroin. Afghanistan's opium may be turned into heroin and shipped through Russia and Turkey to Europe, or be consumed in neighboring Iran, the world's largest consumer of opium as opium. Heroin in America and Canada generally comes from Latin America.
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