AllMovie

In the cultivated fields of Burma grows a beautiful flower with a terrible legacy. The poppy's seed has been exploited for centuries to produce first opium, and then its more destructive derivative, heroin. This three-part series chronicles the history of the opium and heroin trade in Burma. It is a story that leads from that small country, throughout Southeast Asia, and then around the world. In this first episode, the focus is on the Shan people, whose struggle for independence from Burma was tied to its sole cash crop of opium. The intervention of the United States under President Richard Nixon only resulted in a changing of the guard of warlords, rather than a reduction in the convoys carrying opium out of the region. Archival film clips, photographs, and interviews tell the story.