In addition to producing 330 tons of opiates in 2009 (17 percent of world cultivation), Burma/Myanmar has 66,000 domestic heroin users and 67,000 domestic opiate users within its border.

Source: “Producing drugs for the region, fuelling addiction at home,” IRIN, June 25, 2010.

According to the United Nations, several thousand people from Burma are believed to be trafficked out of the country each year. The main destination is China, followed by Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Source: “MYANMAR: Tricked by traffickers,” IRIN, May 31, 2010.

According to WWF Investigators, a bottle of “tiger-bone wine” sold in Western China on the border of Burma/Myanmar sold in 2008 for $88.

The wine is believed to give the drinker increase health.

Source:  AFP, “Myanmar a gateway for wildlife trade to China: report,” Google News, March 16, 2010.

Between 1998 and 2010, the tiger population in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma/Myanmar dropped 70 percent, from 1,200 tigers in 1998 to 350 in 2010.

Source: AFP, “Mekong tiger population at ‘crisis point’: WWF,” Yahoo News, January 26, 2010.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that the potential value of Burma’s 2009 opium production was $104 Million, down 15 percent from the $123 Million value in 2008.

Source:  “Myanmar rebels grow more opium to buy arms – report,” Reuters, December 14, 2009.

The world’s second largest opium producing country after Afghanistan is Burma/Myanmar, which in 2009 produced 5 percent of the world’s opium.

Source:  Thomas Fuller, “U.N. Says Opium Trade Is Expanding in Myanmar,” New York Times, December 14, 2009.

In 2008, more than the 90 percent of the 270,000 cubic meters of logs and 170,000 cubic meters of sawn timber imported into China from Burma was illegal.

Source:  Global Witness, “Dramatic decrease in illegal timber trade between Burma and China but smuggling continues; China urged to do more,” Press Release, October 21, 2009.

In 2009, Thailand stationed 1,500 troops on its norther border with Burma/Myanmar for the purpose of drug interdiction.

Source: Thomas Fuller, “Myanmar Drug Trade Surges Along Thai Border,” New York Times, September 30, 2009.