Myanmar’s authorities destroyed more than $446 million worth of illegal drugs seized from around the country to mark an annual international anti-drug trafficking day on Monday, police said.[1] In Yangon, a pile of seized drugs and precursor chemicals worth $207 million was incinerated, including marijuana beside opium, heroin, methamphetamine, kratom, ketamine and crystal meth.[1]

Authorities also destroyed drugs in the central city of Mandalay and in Taunggyi, the capital of eastern Shan state, both closer to the main drug production and distribution areas.[1] The burn coincided with the U.N.’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.[1]

The drug burn came as U.N. experts warned of increases in the production of opium, heroin and methamphetamine in Myanmar, with exports threatening to expand markets in South and Southeast Asia.[1] Myanmar has a long history of drug production linked to political and economic insecurity caused by decades of armed conflict.[1] The country is a major producer and exporter of methamphetamine and the world’s second-largest opium and heroin producer after Afghanistan, despite repeated attempts to promote alternative legal crops among poor farmers.[1]

The military government says some ethnic armed organizations that control large swaths of remote territory produce illicit drugs to fund their insurgencies.[1] The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that poppy cultivation rose by one-third in the year and that estimates of opium production spiked in 2022 to 790 tonnes.[2] Estimates of opium production were 400 tonnes in 2020 and about 790 tonnes in 2022, the report showed.[2] Last year, authorities burned more than $642 million worth of seized drugs, The National reported.[3]

The 26 June ceremony was attended by members of a student marching band, who passed the pile of drugs.[2]