Opium Trade

“After France annexed Laos in 1893, opium monopolies were established to finance the heavy initial expense of colonial rule. The French imported over 60 tons of opium per year from the middle east.”

Opium poppy cultivation expanded in South East Asia during the 1950’s mostly due to the suppression of Chinese people and a decline in imports from the Middle East due to them becoming increasingly expensive.

Today Thailand is opium free and Laos no longer supplies to the illicit drug market. The Laos government has been trying to eliminate poppy crops for the past 8 years but unfortunately the crops have been wiped out faster than the farmers can find alternative sources of income. Therefore the cultivation continues but on a much smaller scale than in the previous century.
Harvest continues in remote mountainous and poor areas in the northern provinces of Laos.

Addiction usually affects middle age to elderly men, often making them incapable of contributing to the family income and well being. Lao women unfortunately bore the task of working the field, waking early and walking for many hours up steep mountainous terrain to tend the crops. Labor is very physical and trying for these often frail women who then have to return home to opium dependent spouses.