June 26, 2005
YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar, the world's second-largest opium producer, burned more than 328 million dollars worth of illicit drugs Sunday to showcase its counter-narcotics efforts on UN-sponsored International Anti-Drugs Day.
The country's military rulers burned the drugs seized by authorities at a ceremony before diplomats, UN drugs officials, and top government figures at the Drug Elimination Museum in the capital Yangon.
Some 625 kilograms (1,380 pounds) of opium, 759 kilograms (1,670 pounds) of heroin, three million amphetamine tablets, 179 kilograms (395 pounds) of the methamphetamine known as "ice" and 93 kilograms (205 pounds) of ephedrine powder were tossed into the incinerator, officials said.
The home minister, Major General Maung Oo, pushed the button to set off the flames that destroyed the drugs, which the government said could have sold for 328 million dollars on the streets of the United States.
Brigadier General Khin Ye, the police chief and secretary of the central committee for drug abuse control, said in a speech that Myanmar's anti-drugs policies had slashed opium production to about 370 tonnes in 2004 from 828 tonnes in 2002.
"Although poppy cultivation and opium production has been reduced in Myanmar, the danger of amphetamine-type stimulants, ATS, has emerged as a new drug threat," he said.
"In terms of the proportion of townships where ATS seizures were recorded, 88 seizures were made in 100 townships out of 383 townships in the whole of Myanmar, representing over 26 percent of the townships in Myanmar," he said.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report last year Myanmar had taken substantial strides since 1996 in reducing opium production as it aims to eradicate the crops by 2014.
The areas planted with opium poppies in Myanmar was cut by 29 percent in 2004 compared with the previous year, according to a joint survey by UNODC and Myanmar's military government.
An estimated 260,000 households, or more than 1.2 million people, are involved in opium cultivation in Myanmar, the vast majority in Shan state which borders China and also forms part of the notorious Golden Triangle with Laos and Thailand, according to the survey.
(Accompanying picture by AFP)
