The Golden Triangle 2023: Opium Surges

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has just published their December, 2023 survey of opium production in the Golden Triangle: Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2023: Cultivation, Production and Implications.

Bottom line: Opium and the consequent production of heroin are surging in The Golden Triangle.

For most careful observers of this region, the UN report does not come as a surprise. In fact, it was predicted by many of us. The military coup in Myanmar (Burma) and political violence in the countryside combined with the deteriorating economies of both Myanmar and Laos, made predicting a rise in opium production easy. After all, opium grows best in political chaos. ¹

The Numbers

The Myanmar statistics: (All statistics are taken from the current UNODC survey.)

• 2023 opium production increased 36% from 2022.
• Total 2023 median opium production is 1,080 metric tons (mts) with a potential high of 1,720 mts. The highest since 2001.
• Area under opium poppy cultivation increased 18% from 2022 which had seen a 33% increase. Estimates are between 32,000-77,000 hectares are currently dedicated to opium poppy cultivation.
• Opium yield estimates for 2023 are 23 kilograms/hectare, with Shan State poppy crop yielding nearly 30 kilos/hectare. These are the highest yields in the history of the Golden Triangle.
• The amount paid a poppy farmer for his opium yield (farm gate price) increased to $317-$356 (US)
• The value of the opium crop and consequent production of heroin, could have a maximum domestic value of $2.2 Billion (US) and represent 4% of Myanmar’s total Gross Domestic Product.

The Laos Statistics

This is the first Laos opium survey since 2015. The survey is much smaller than Myanmar’s and the numbers subject to more uncertainty.

• 2023 total area under opium poppy cultivation has an average of 5,000 hectares with a high range of 8,300 hectares.
• Most opium is grown in Phongsaly Province in the extreme north which borders Myanmar.
• The average 2023 total opium production is 63 mts with a high range of 108 mts.
• 2023 opium yields are nearly 13 kilos/hectare. (Much less than Myanmar)

The Economics of Opium

Critical to understanding the increase in Golden Triangle opium cultivation is to recognize the collapse of the opium economy in Afghanistan.

In 2022, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and banned opium cultivation. Overnight, Afghani opium production was reduced 95%. From producing 6,200 mts of opium in 2021 Afghanistans now produces barely 300 mts. ²

The Golden Triangle stepped in to fill that void.

The collapse of Afghani opium production has triggered a series of events:

1. A worldwide heroin shortage which leads to greater demand.

2. Higher heroin demand = a higher opium demand.

3. Higher opium demand = higher prices paid to farmers per kilo/opium.

4. Higher opium prices = more farmers willing to grow it.

This increase in opium production would have solely occurred due to Myanmar’s political and economic chaos, but probably not to the extent we see. The collapse of Afghani opium production was a golden opportunity that the Golden Triangle drug cartels weren’t going to miss.

Heroin Production: How Much?

The question of how much heroin did the Golden Triangle produce (the conversion ratio of opium to heroin) in 2023 is difficult to answer for 3 basic reasons.

1. The morphine content of opium. Opium morphine content can vary from 6-7% for sickly plants up to 15-20% for healthy plants that come from hybrid seeds. Heroin is made from morphine, so the more morphine per plant equals a greater heroin yield.
2. The expertise of the laboratory chemist who makes heroin. An experienced chemist is more efficient at converting opium/morphine into heroin.
3. The purity of the final heroin product. It takes more opium to produce a kilogram of 95% pure heroin (#4 grade) than a kilo of 75% pure heroin (#3 grade).

But given these variables, we can still make fairly accurate estimates about how much heroin is produced in the Golden Triangle.

UNODC gives an estimated average total opium harvest of Myanmar and Laos of 1,143 metric tons, with a high range of 1,828 mts.

The fact that average yields in Myanmar have increased to 23 kilos/hectare, (in 2021 the yield was 14 kilos/hectare) due to irrigation and fertilizers, means the crop is healthy. Healthy poppy plants have high morphine content compared to sickly plants.

Assume the average morphine content is 10% which is generally accepted by experts. ³ (That’s a conservative number. It is probably more like 12%-13% given the yields.) Therefore the Golden Triangle opium harvest provides a range of approximately 114 metric tons to 182 mts of morphine.

The conversion of morphine base (unrefined morphine) to heroin base (#2 grade heroin) is 1:1. One kilo of morphine base will make one kilo of heroin base.

If you make heroin hydrochloride (#3 grade heroin) you will start to diminish the ratio. ^{4 5} Grade #3 heroin ratio varies around 1:0.8-one kilo of heroin base = .8 kilo of #3 heroin.

The ratio is substantially diminished when you make #4 grade heroin-the purist heroin at 95-98% purity. That ratio falls to approximately 1:0.6 or 1:0.7-one kilo of heroin base will make .6 or .7 kilo of #4 grade heroin. ⁶

The preference of the drug cartels is to export the highest purity level possible. It’s the most efficient way to smuggle heroin (smaller physical amount) and it has the highest value.

Therefore, my estimate of how much heroin the Golden Triangle will produce from its 2023 opium harvest calculates the conversion of opium into #4 grade heroin.

Using the UNODC’s average opium harvest estimate, the 2023 harvest will yield approximately 69 metric tons of #4 grade opium. ⁷

Using UNODC’s high opium harvest estimate, the 2023 harvest will yield approximately 110 metric tons of #4 grade heroin.

UNODC estimates heroin production export in a range of 58-154 metric tons. ⁸ The UNODC estimate does not specify the type of heroin produced.

My conservative estimate of 69-110 metric tons of high-grade heroin production fits within the parameters of UNODC’s estimate of 58-154 metrics tons of unspecified heroin.

Higher Yields

The higher poppy crop yields in Myanmar are the result of irrigation systems and fertilizer. In Laos, these advantages are rarely used which explains why their poppy crop yields haven’t change much over the years.

The money for irrigation systems and fertilizer are supplied to the subsistence farmers by the buyers of their opium harvest.

While no contracts appear to be used, drug cartel agents come to the isolated villages and request a farmer grow poppy. If the farmer’s land is big enough to make substantial profit for the agent, the agent will supply these improvements.

These same agents will return after the harvest to purchase the opium, obviating the need for the farmer to find a buyer. 

Opium = Cash $$$

The price for a kilo of opium has risen dramatically in 2023 which provides the strongest incentive for a farmer to plant poppy.

There is no other cash crop available to the hill farmers as lucrative as the opium poppy.

In 2020 a Myanmar poppy farmer was paid approximately $78 (US) for a kilo of opium. ⁹ In 2021, the farm gate price rose to $156 (US). ¹⁰ In 2023, the price paid is $$317-$356 according to UNODC.

In just four years, 2020-2023, the price paid to a farmer for his opium has roughly quadrupled!

Poppy Farmer Income

The hill farmers who grow the poppy are the poorest of the poor. They are subsistence farmers whose farmsteads are usually 1-2 hectares. They grow rice, beans, corn and a few other vegetables.

UNODC found that poppy farmers in Kachin State, Myanmar (the far northern state which borders China) earned on average $584 (US) for their opium. Non-poppy farmers earned $336 (US) for all crops they grew.

Farmers used their poppy crop money mostly for food, followed by health care.

Eradication

Eradication is a bust. In Myanmar, a total of 2,358 hectares were eradicated, and almost all were located in southern Shan State.

Estimates are that between 32,000-77,000 hectares are under opium poppy cultivation. That means eradication is between 3%-7% of poppy fields were eradicated.

Even those percentages are skewed by fraudulent eradication claims (the field was eradicated after the opium harvested), or the cartels and police colluded to eradicate low yield fields for the purpose of publicity and politics (keeping the Drug Enforcement Agency of the US happy).

Comments of Jeremy Douglas of UNODC

Jeremy Douglas, regional director of UNODC for Southeast Asia and the Pacific had some blunt words about the law enforcement response to the Golden Triangle’s surge in opium:

“It’s been decades of trying to seize more drugs and it’s more drugs every year. Let’s be honest, it’s not working….

“The region [the Golden Triangle] cannot police its way out of this. It’s not going to work.”

The Opium Surge in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle by Kevin Doyle, Al Jazeera News, Feb. 2, 2023

Kokang, Wa State, & Mongla

Kokang, Wa State and Mongla are small special administrative regions located between Shan State and the Chinese border in Myanmar.

These three ethnic enclaves were the center of opium and heroin production until the mid-1990’s. Their involvement in the drug trade was so great that Wa State even licensed and taxed its heroin refineries. This came to an end in the mid-1990’s due to tremendous pressure from the United States and China.

Since the late 1990’s, these enclaves have proclaimed themselves opium-free.

The UNODC survey makes no mention of these enclaves. But they are depicted on a map that shows no opium being currently cultivated in their regions.

In the past, these enclaves have allowed inspectors in to prove they no longer produce opium. And we can assume this is still the case.

But the UNODC shows heavy opium cultivation bordering Mongla and especially Wa State. It appears that Wa State and Mongla, while prohibiting opium in their respective enclaves, have cast a blind eye to it flourishing just across their borders.

Are Wa State and Mongla involved in the opium production just across their borders? We don’t know. But color me highly suspicious that especially Wa State is not still involved in the opium trade from the map above.

It should be noted that all three enclaves, especially Wa State with its 35,000+ well trained and equipped militia, is heavily implicated in the manufacture and transport of methamphetamines.

Final Thoughts

It’s tempting to say that the Golden Triangle is back in the opium trade. But that would be wrong. The Golden Triangle has always been in the opium trade.

From its ancient past, where opium coursed through the Golden Triangle along the Silk Roads between India and China; from its colonial past of supplying opium to the opium monopolies of British India, French Indochina, and Thailand; from the 1950’s when its opium flooded the heroin refineries of Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok and Singapore; from the 1970’s when its heroin was found in the nightclubs of Paris or running through the veins of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam; from the 1990’s when it was the world’s biggest supplier of heroin, the Golden Triangle has always embraced the opium flower.

Nothing has changed.

*****

For More Info about The Golden Triangle

Read my posts:

The Golden Triangle: Opium Dreams & Yaba Screams

Following the Opium Trail to the Golden Triangle

Portrait of a Golden Triangle Opium Farmer

1. See: Bertil Lintner, Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948, Westview Press, Boulder, (1994), and Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, (1999, 2003 and 2011).
2. UNODC, “Afghanistan opium cultivation in 2023 declined 95% following drug ban“, Kabul/Vienna (2023)
3. United Nations International Drug Conrol Program “Recommended Methods for Testing Opium, Morphine, Heroin”, pg. 4 (1998)
4. “Documentation of a Heroin Manufacturing Process in Afghanistan” Federal Criminal Police Office, Wiesbaden, Germany (2007)
5. Grade #3 heroin is a retail product that is smoked, snorted and sometimes injected.
6. “Documentation of a Heroin Manufacturing Process in Afghanistan” Federal Criminal Police Office, Wiesbaden, Germany (2007)
7. This calculation was done using the conservative ratio of 1:6/10 for conversion of heroin base to #4 grade heroin.
8. Myanmar and Laos consume domestically a few tons of heroin annually. Also some opium is still consumed as opium. But this domestic consumption does change the broad parameters of estimating heroin production.
9. Deborah Eade, “Poppy Farmers Under Pressure: Causes and Consequences of the Opium Decline in Myanmar”, Page 38, Transnational Institute (Dec. 2021)
10. ibid.
11. A viss, 1.6 kilograms, is a unit of measure used in the opium trade that dates to colonial times of the 18th Century.