Opium is one of the primary sources of income, besides rice and corn, for many households in much of Asia. An average family in Laos yields approximately ten kilograms of opium a year, ranging from 5 kilograms in a poor year to 15 or 20 kilograms in a good year. But it should be noted that there is a tradition for underestimating the amounts of opium production in part to hide the family's wealth. So the annual range of amounts varies from community to community.

The annual yield depends on (1) how long the weighed opium was collected, (2) if it has been cooked into smoking opium and (3) the poppy farmer's report. In 1966, the reported annual yield from opium production was between 100 and 250 dollars.

Although the rewards from opium production is lucrative, the daily tasks are grueling compared that of rice or corn. Daily returns on poppy cultivation varies from under 1 dollars to 2 dollars per day. Producing a kilogram of opium usually takes anywhere from 240 to 500 man-hours of labor. This is when the year is good (free of over flooding or droughts)-the harvesting has an average of one bad year for every four years.

In 1997, the main producers and exporters opium are Burma and Afghanistan. A kilogram of opium is worth 500,000 baht (19,600 U.S. dollars) per kilogram. Burma harvested over 2,560 tons of opium in 1997 alone.