How the military benefits from Myanmar's growing opium economy
For the past 10 years drug production in Myanmar has been on the rise. The amount of land used to grow poppy from which the opium sap used to make heroin is derived has more than doubled since 2006. According to the UN, Myanmar now accounts for more than 25 per cent of the global area under illegal poppy cultivation, making the country the second largest producer of illegal opium in the world after Afghanistan.