Kuala Lumpur: Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar reached its highest level in a decade in 2025, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), underscoring the country’s continued role as a major source of illicit drugs.

The Myanmar Opium Survey 2025 reported that the area under opium cultivation expanded by 17% from 2024, reaching 53,100 hectares (131,212 acres), the largest extent since 2015.

Myanmar’s emergence as a leading opium producer follows sharp declines in Afghanistan’s output after the Taliban imposed a ban on cultivation in 2021. The UNODC survey also reaffirmed Myanmar’s position as the world’s largest methamphetamine producer, with the synthetic drug increasingly distributed across Asia and the Pacific.

The price of opium, which is processed into mor

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