South East Asia: Global Drug Report

Illict drug production trends in South East Asia are improving, says the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's 2005 World Drug Report.

On opium:

In Southeast Asia, in contrast, opium poppy cultivation has decreased continuously since 1998. In 2004, only 50,900 ha of opium were cultivated in Lao PDR and Myanmar, as compared to 158,000 ha in Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam in 1998. Despite this year’s increase, global opium poppy cultivation is still far less than it was in the nineties, and since 1998 - the year of the UNGASS - global cultivation has declined by 18%.

On methamphetamines:

The main origin of methamphetamine production in Asia is in China, Myanmar and the Philippines. China, followed by the Philippines and Myanmar, dismantled the most methamphetamine laboratories in Asia; in terms of output, production levels seem to be of similar magnitudes in China and in Myanmar, though methamphetamine production in the Philippines appears to have increased.
.........
Methamphetamine production in Thailand - according to information provided by the Thai authorities - has largely ceased to exist.

And we are talking big numbers too:

The size of the global illicit drug market is substantial. The value, measured at retail prices, is higher than the GDP of 88% of the countries in the world....

So it seems that South East Asia is not only providing Australians with a cheap holiday destination, but also heroin for their habits and pills for their weekend nightclub binges. Unfortunately Australians seem to be paying the highest prices in the world for their illicit drugs as well - no doubt a function of the transit and risk required to import the stuff into this country.

But so long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. And so long as the rewards are so great, there will always be the unscrupulous, the lazy and the desperate, willing to risk their necks to traffick and trade the stuff.