Emperor Shun creates creates Liang Na empress…

…the 2100 kilometer-long Ledo Road to K'un-ming, Yunnan, China.

The British employ Pashtun contractors to ensure a regular supply of opium to the laborers.

It is also a deliberate Allied Policy to supply opium to the Kachins of Upper Burma to win their support against the Japanese occupation forces.

American commanders distribute opium to their subordinates, who use it for different purposes.

It is given to the villagers to pay for information about enemy movements; it is also used as money to pay for chickens, eggs, rice, salt, etc., virtually replacing Japanese currency and British silver.
(Source: Central Bureau of Narcotics, Gwalior)

Opium cultivation and trade flourishes in the Shan States of Burma, which gains independence from Britain in 1948.

From 1949, remnants of the defeated Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) Army who shelter in the North East of Burma are helped by the United States to partly finance their resistance by selling opium, and subsequently heroin.

By 1970, the Golden Triangle, producing to 713 tons of opium in this year, accounts for 67 percent of world illicit opium supply.

In Burma alone, opium production has risen from 8 tons in 1936 to 500 tons in 1970.

By 1972, Shan warlord Khun Sa, a major source for raw opium in the profitable drug trade, controls heroin exportation from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle.

The accelerated withdrawal of U.S. combat forces in 1971-1972 forces Southeast Asian syndicates to seek new markets for their heroin production.
(Source: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade; Opium)

(Source: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade; Opium)

US officials suspects that the agreement between SLORC and Khun Sa includes a deal allowing him to retain control of his opium trade but in exchange end his 30-year-old insurrection against the government.
(Source: Opium: A History)