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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Health

Myanmar overtakes Afghanistan as world’s top opium producer: UN

A man harvests opium as he works in an opium field outside Loikaw, Kayah state, Myanmar [File: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters]

Myanmar has become the world’s top producer of opium, overtaking Afghanistan in 2023, according to a new United Nations report.

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

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