Fields of poppy flowers did not initially cover
the lush highlands straddling Laos, Myanmar
and Thailand. And while this region, known
today as the Golden Triangle, maintains
its reputation as the centre of illicit opium
production in Southeast Asia, its peoples’
tumultuous history with the plant begins in
a manner far more harmonious than modern
developments would have observers believe.
Even before colonial powers created new
plantations across Southeast Asia to capitalise
on lucrative sales following the Sino-British
opium wars, poppies – and by extension,
opium – was known and used by locals.
We know of opium as the addictive narcotic that
once held Asia drugged and spellbound. But the
people of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand – still
major producers of this “joy fruit” – once had a
healthy relationship with its intoxicating effects
Healthy High
POPPY TEARS
below A depiction of
an opium den in Chinaright An illustration
of a hill tribe woman
and her son at a
poppy farm along
the Golden TriangleMeMories
The inhabitants of the Golden Triangle first
conceived poppy latexes as a herb to be grown
and eaten, and had little interaction with its
modern (and more sinister) derivatives like
heroin and morphine.
Opium was consumed by Burmese elites
before the British arrived in the 1820s, writes
Ashley Wright in the 2014 book Opium and
Empire in South-East Asia. Jonathan Saha’s
2017 paper, “Colonizing Elephants: Animal
Agency, Undead Capital and Imperial Science
in British Burma”, claims the drug’s trance-
inducing properties were also employed to
treat sick elephants in Burmese elephant
camps, acting as tranquilisers during medical
procedures for the behemoths. Hans Derks,
in his 2012 book History of the Opium
Problem, listed the first reference to opium
use in Southeast Asia as 1366 (Thailand)
and 1519 (Myanmar). Though opium first
originated from Mesopotamia and was first
traded on a large scale by the Dutch, “Arab and
Portuguese traders, respectively, must havePHOTO © SHUTTERSTOCK