"...opium has now become an integral factor in the civil conflict and one that threatens to prolong the suffering of those involved in the cultivation of opium poppy...It is not merely the ethnic conflict regions that have suffered from the effects of drug use in Burma however. Rates of drug addiction, though difficult to quantify, appear to be increasing across the country. Two well documented shifts in drug habits also give cause for concern. Firstly, the transition from opium smoking to heroin smoking and finally to heroin injection, which has led in turn to HIV/AIDS rates increasing to match the levels of intravenous drug use...It is not merely the ethnic conflict regions that have suffered from the effects of drug use in Burma however. Rates of drug addiction, though difficult to quantify, appear to be increasing across the country. Two well documented shifts in drug habits also give cause for concern. Firstly, the transition from opium smoking to heroin smoking and finally to heroin injection, which has led in turn to HIV/AIDS rates increasing to match the levels of intravenous drug use human rights abuses have negated a good deal of the positive effects of this reduction. Forced relocation, deprivation of livelihoods and lack of viable alternatives for farmers who were forcibly evicted from their lands have all been the result of a push by the SPDC to make Burma drug free by 2014 (in line with ASEAN?s stated goal of a drug region by 2015). Thus, while the SPDC preens itself over the eradication of opium cultivation, and largely ignores the problems it has caused in the process, the nation has rapidly become addicted to alternative drugs, which pose just as dangerous a threat to Burma and its neighbours as opium ever did. These are factors which have brought the debate surrounding drug production and trafficking in Burma into the realm of human rights and developmental discourse, international relations and conflict resolution..."