Poppylands: Understanding Myanmar's addiction to heroin

By Liz Gooch - Al Jazeera

Dr Nang Pann Ei Kham, coordinator of the Drug Policy Advocacy Group, speaks to Al Jazeera about the deadly addiction.

In Myanmar, thousands of families earn a living farming the crop that feeds the heroin habit of the world's drug users. But not all of the country's opium is smuggled abroad.

Pure, cheap heroin is flooding Myanmar's villages, leaving a trail of death and devastated families in its wake.

Dr Nang Pann Ei Kham, the coordinator of the Drug Policy Advocacy Group, talks about how the fear of corporal punishment and imprisonment prevents many drug users from seeking help, and the rehabilitation centres where "treatment" is based on religious teachings.

Her pressure group includes experts, opium farmers and drug users themselves.

"They are the ones whose lives, livelihoods and health are directly affected by repressive drug policies based on criminalisation and forced eradication. Unfortunately, their voices are too often ignored," she explains.

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Thumbnail: Flickr CC TassieEye