Myanmar is now world's largest source of opium, says United Nations

BANGKOK,(Reuters): Myanmar has become the world's largest source of opium, thanks to domestic instability and a decline in cultivation in Afghanistan, the United Nations said in a report last week.

The 95% decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan after a drug ban by the Taliban in 2022 has seen global supply shifted to Myanmar, where political, social and economic instability brought about by a 2021 coup drove many to poppy farming, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report said.