PANMT UNG, Thailand,Wednesday (Reuters) - In the lush green hills of Northern Thailand, a group of soldiers dressed in black, slash through a poppy plantation with bamboo sticks.

Each swipe sends pink and white flowers dropping to the ground and within 15 minutes the entire field is destroyed.

The plantation, discovered outside a village in northern Chiang Mai province near the Thai-Myanmar border, is the 98th field the army has destroyed over the past three months in an intensified drive against narcotic production and trafficking.

The Thai military has been using the latest in satellite technology to find illegal opium crops, along with helicopter searches. Once a crop is located, troops are sent in to destroy it and try to find those responsible.

Lieutenant Colonel Prakit Sonsuyan is leading this latest mission.

He says his team has been successful in curbing the illegal trade, but he is under no illusion that it is a problem that will disappear overnight.

"Opium carries high prices. Villagers live in remote rugged areas and they cannot grow other crops, so they turn to grow opium, which is easily sold. Financial sponsors and consumers in the area support the plantation," he said.

Destroying the crop is the easy part for Prakit and his troops. Finding the plantations is a lot harder and can also be dangerous.

Last year a Thai soldier was shot when he was on duty close to where this latest poppy field was found.

Prakit says the drug farmers use all sorts of tricks and traps to keep the army away from their crops.

One trap found in the area contained a set of bamboo spears set to go off when someone walked past.

Prakit says farmers often plant other flowers with the poppy plants to disguise them. Or they plant poppies in a similar pattern to cabbage crops so that they won't be recognised from the air.

Those caught growing opium face fines of up to 100,000 baht ($2,350) and 10 years in prison. But Prakit says it's often difficult to gather enough evidence against those caught.

In a nearby village, Leesea lies on the balcony of his small wooden hut.

He has tired eyes sunk deep into his skull, a dry and wrinkled face and a pronounced black line around his lips. He looks much older than his 54 years.

His shaky, grubby hands fiddle with an old pipe which he fills with opium and lights. He is the only remaining opium smoker in his village and says that although it's a costly addiction, he can't give it up.

"I've smoked for over 20 years... I can't stop for a single day because I will have pains all over my body," he says, adding:

"It's more difficult to find opium now than in the past, perhaps, because of more patrols and cutting by soldiers."

Authorities say most of the opium grown in the hills of northern Thailand is bought by Myanmar's drug dealers and taken to refineries inside Myanmar to be processed into heroin.

Myanmar is the world's second biggest producer of opium and its derivative heroin, according to anti-narcotics agencies who say the country's annual drugs production is worth billions of dollars.

Bangkok accuses ethnic militia groups in Myanmar of producing illicit drugs with the support of Myanmar's military, a charge the military government rejects.

Thai farmers are paid about 40,000 baht ($950) for just 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) of opium -- making it the ultimate cash crop.

Since the beginning of this year, the fight against narcotics production and trafficking has intensified in a coordinated action by anti-narcotics agencies from the region, the United States and the U.N. International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).

UNDCP representative Sandro Calvani says the effort has paid off.

"Finally we have got results -- more results than before, more effective, more international cooperation, and we hope very soon to be able to have more successful stories than we had in the past," he said.

"Thailand will be the first country in the world able to almost completely eliminate the opium poppy, and we hope amphetamines," he says.