Opium growth in Burma is eclipsing all other countries in south-east Asia and production is trending ''relentlessly upward'', the head of a UN drugs unit will say today.
The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for east Asia, Gary Lewis, will say in a speech that opium growing in Burma had risen sharply in the past four years. He will also call on law enforcement and governments to do more to tackle the threat of transnational organised crime.
''Transnational organised crime has internationalised faster than the ability of law enforcement and world governance to keep pace,'' he will say.
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''It now represents [an] overarching threat to governments, to societies and to economies. In some cases [it] has also become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of countries.''
