REPORT: LAOS OPIUM PRODUCTION DOWN

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The opium yield in communist Laos, a major world
producer of the illicit drug, has dropped by an estimated 30 percent
this year, the Lao state news agency reported.

The yield for the 2001 growing season was estimated to be 117.5 tons,
compared with 167 tons in 2000, the Khao San Pathet Lao agency
reported in a dispatch received in Bangkok on Saturday.

One ton of opium is sufficient to produce about 220 pounds of heroin.

According to the report, the reduction was due to "the attention of
the local authorities, and the awareness of local people in
combination with climatic changes."

Opium flourishes on mountainsides in Southeast Asia's Golden
Triangle, where the borders of Laos, Myanmar and northern Thailand
meet.

Southeast Asian countries have agreed to eradicate the drug by 2008,
but it is an important cash crop for poor villagers.

The KPL agency was citing a survey on opium production prepared by
the Lao National Commission for Drug Supervision and Control and the
United Nations International Drug Control Program. Most of Laos'
opium is believed to be consumed domestically by more than 60,000
opium addicts.