Opium production in Myanmar increased for the fifth consecutive year in 2011, while its price skyrocketed nearly 50 percent, United Nations officials declare.

In Laos, new cash crops such as fruit, corn and rice have helped turn most farmers away from poppy cultivation. But the struggle is constant. From pests to pruning techniques, these crops, which take well to the region’s rugged mountainous terrain but typically earn less, demand different skills and knowledge than opium.

Some 80,000 farmers' families in Colombia depend on illicit coca bush cultivation to survive. UNODC runs projects to wean farmers off illicit crop cultivation by encouraging them to pursue alternative livelihoods

Bolivian President Evo Morales said that a regional South American bloc should "decertify'' the U.S. in its counternarcotics efforts, hitting back at Washington's criticism of his South American nation on drugs. Morales accused the United States of being the root cause of the international drug trade as a leading consumer of cocaine.

Newly installed Peruvian President Ollanta Humala is facing the first serious challenge to his authority as coca farmer unions have gone on strike to protest the resumption of coca plant eradication. Last month, Humala's government announced a temporary halt to eradication in the Upper Huallaga River Valley, but now eradication is again underway, and the coca farmer unions are up in arms.

Prime minister announces anti-drugs scheme will be halted while government rethinks strategy.

The move comes as a surprise to the U.S., whose envoy says she is awaiting an explanation from the Peru government over the halting of the program that targeted coca, the base material of cocaine.