Myanmar destroys poppy plantations, arrests 8

YANGON -- The Myanmar authorities have destroyed a total of 70 acres (28.3 hectares) of opium poppy plantations illegally grown in the country's eastern Shan state and arrested eight people in this connection, the state-owned newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Thursday.

The illegally planted poppy were uncovered and the eight growers were held by a combined team comprising local army unit and the police force in the state's Loilem township on November 29, the report said.

According to official statistics, in the 2006-07 poppy growing season, the authorities destroyed 775.37 hectares of poppy plantations in the country.

Other figures show that during 2006, the authorities exposed a total of 2,848 drug-related cases, punishing a total of 4,360 people, including 801 women,

That year's seizure included 192.33 kg of heroin, 2,311.34 kg of opium and 1,370.83 kg of brown opium, 1,287.45 kg of ephedrine and 72.73 kg of marijuana as well as more than 19 million stimulant tablets.

Meanwhile, on June 26 this year, the Myanmar authorities burned nearly 1.5 tons of various seized narcotic drugs worth 272 million U.S. dollars in Lashio, northeastern border area in Shan state. The burned drugs included 74 kg heroin, 970 kg opium and 405 million tablets of stimulants.

Besides, 6,319 liters of precursor chemicals were destroyed and over 500 kg of poppy seeds separately burned.

An annual report of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) for 2007 revealed that Myanmar's poppy cultivation fell 34 percent to 21,500 hectares in 2006, representing a dramatic 83 percent fall from 130,300 hectares in 1998.

The number of drug users in Myanmar has decreased from 63,615 in 2004 to 56,823 in 2007, according to the Home Ministry.

Myanmar has been implementing a 15-year plan (1999-2014) to totally eradicate poppy in three phases, each running for five years, and it is now in the second five-year phase (2004-09).

Myanmar declared three regions of Mongla, Kokang and Wa as poppy-free zones in 1997, 2003 and 2005 respectively.