A United Nations-backed call to end the criminalisation of drug use has urged Southeast Asian governments, including Thailand, to abandon punitive drug policies, arguing that decades of enforcement have failed to reduce drug markets while causing widespread social and human rights harm.

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The appeal follows the release of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) regional report earlier this month, which found record levels of drug seizures across Southeast and East Asia, particularly of methamphetamine and ketamine. Despite increased enforcement, retail drug prices have fallen in Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia, suggesting synthetic drugs are more widely available than ever. The findings were reinforced by the UNODC World Drug Report 2026, published earlier this week ahead of World Drug Day on 27 June.

The article argues that governments have focused heavily on law enforcement and harsher penalties in the belief that punishment would deter drug trafficking. Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia continue to have death sentences for drug trafficking. Although the Philippines abolished the death penalty, former president Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign resulted in 8,663 officially reported extrajudicial killings, while the UN human rights office estimates the true figure could exceed 20,000. Duterte now faces charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court.

Across the region, more than half of prisoners in many countries are incarcerated for drug offences. Thailand has the world’s second-highest rate of female imprisonment, with more than 60% of female inmates jailed for drug-related crimes. Indonesia, followed closely by the Philippines, has experienced the world’s fastest growth in female incarceration, again largely driven by drug offences.

The report also criticises compulsory drug treatment programmes, noting that many are operated by police or military authorities and have been identified by international and national human rights bodies as sites of torture, forced labour and other abuses. It argues that criminalising drug use creates stigma that discourages people from seeking help.

The report author says ASEAN leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a “drug-free” region during the summit in the Philippines in May without acknowledging the costs or the lack of progress over more than two decades. Instead, policymakers are urged to adopt evidence-based approaches that prioritise health, welfare and human rights.

The Bangkokpost reports that the report highlights growing international support for reforms including harm reduction, decriminalisation and responsible regulation of drugs. More than 30 countries have already decriminalised drug use, while Thailand has done so for cannabis and kratom. The report concludes that Southeast Asian governments should move beyond limited reforms and end the criminalisation of drug use, possession for personal use and related activities in line with recommendations from UN drug, health and human rights authorities.

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Adapted by ASEAN Now Bangkokpost 29 June 2026

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Thai's should tell the UN to GFY. Additionally, ICC is a joke, ranks right up there with Strongly Worded Letter.

19 minutes ago, rock49286 said:

Thai's should tell the UN to GFY. Additionally, ICC is a joke, ranks right up there with Strongly Worded Letter.

The UN promoted the so called "pandemic" and the "vaccines", and now it is promoting drug legalization. Not a surprise. Let people become zombies and die of overdose like it is happening all over America. I have never seen so many young homeless and drug addict people. It is insane.

And what exactly are they suggesting replace it? or should Thailand just look the other way and let addicts be addicts? Typical UN nonsense.

4 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

that decades of enforcement have failed to reduce drug markets while causing widespread social and human rights harm

. . . and have generated an untold amount of $$$

For quite some time the UN has not been fit for purpose. It has become a body with a politically-driven agenda which ignores and rules over the majority of its members, De-fund and dismiss this corrupt organisation as soon as possible.

What should happen, destructive drugs like Ice, Heroin etc should be banned. Get caught using, 2 years in the can, get caught importing, manufacturing, 20 years in the can. Street dealers, 10 years.

Then manufacture “safer” drugs like Coke, Ecstasy and dope in Pharmaceutical companies so you know the purity. Sell it through licensed sellers to people over 18 etc with appropriate warnings. Yes young people will get around the age restriction and people will still abuse it but you’ve removed the more dangerous drugs and are selling what there is a demand for. The government can apply the appropriate tax and organised crime then had to find another way of making money.

Prohibition never works!

2 hours ago, rock49286 said:

Thai's should tell the UN to GFY. Additionally, ICC is a joke, ranks right up there with Strongly Worded Letter.

Totally wrong. The UN got it right. The war on drugs will never be won. Get rid of the crime and the drug cartels/organizations will collapse, and most of the associated violence will be gone too.

As for the ICC having no teeth, ask Du30, currently locked up there.

And don't forget, if the drugs are legal they'll be manufactured without adding the fentanyl which is causing most of the drug related deaths.

There are perhaps three types of people in the drug trade. Innocent people who made a mistake and began taking drugs then selling them. Cynical people in cartels who may not take drugs but want to make money and those who are homeless or jobless who just want to forget their circumstances.

Having met people in prison caught in "possession of drugs with intent to sell" , some didn't have money to hire a lawyer and explained that the drugs were left by friends or even family.

I know that drug kingpins like Khun Sa should do jail time* but they always get away with it. It is the small fry that get caught and spend 40 years in jail.

Maybe don't arrest the small fry but, but arrest only the drug lords, that is, the cynical ones.

*Khun Sa surrendered himself but was released and granted amnesty.

The DEA and all other similar organisations around the world have cost a lot of time, money and lives while totally failing to in any way to stop, or limit, the drug trade. Best by far to decriminalise, licence, regulate and tax .

Decriminalisation is not the same thing as legalisation. I favour legalisation of all drugs. The rub is we shift the profit from cartels to Big Pharma. It's arguable which kills more people every year!

Ending the war on drugs would free up a lot of money that could be used for public purposes.

The UN? Well, it's what we got. Let me know when you've got anything else, let alone better. To have 180 countries talking to each other is a win!

Note that UN do that bul...it job with OUR money.

4 hours ago, Purdey said:

There are perhaps three types of people in the drug trade. Innocent people who made a mistake and began taking drugs then selling them. Cynical people in cartels who may not take drugs but want to make money and those who are homeless or jobless who just want to forget their circumstances.

I think you missed a big one. Recreational users. Recreational users are not addicts and are generally employed.

8 hours ago, GoodieAfterDark said:

The UN promoted the so called "pandemic" and the "vaccines", and now it is promoting drug legalization. Not a surprise. Let people become zombies and die of overdose like it is happening all over America. I have never seen so many young homeless and drug addict people. It is insane.

Legalization is the only way that actually makes sense. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you do a deep dive, it's the best solution.

Right now, it's criminals that make money with drugs. If you follow the money trail for long enough, you'll inevitably end up at at a cartel, mafia or a terrorist organisation like Al Quaida, Taliban and ISIS, while governments waste billions a year on the absolutely hopeless war against drugs.

If someone gets hooked on hard drugs, they'll fairly quickly get to the point where they can't finance their addiction with their salary anymore because drug smuggling is expensive and they go through numerous hands and everyone wants to make their cut. By the time they get to the consumer, they're expensive and low quality, which means addicts will have to come up with a significant amount of money every day. So now they'll have to resort to criminal activities to make ends meet. Then it's only a question of time before they get caught and then go through the justice system and eventually end up in prison. The cops are paid with tax payers' money and so are the judges and the prison stay.

In countries where there are drug gangs present, you'll also have the crimes committed in relation to the gangs "protecting" or expanding their turf.

When it comes to how many drug addicts there actually are and what diseases are potentially spreading amongst them, all we have is guesstimates.

So, if you legalize drugs and the drugs are produced by governments and then sold through pharmacies anonymously to anyone who wants them over the age of 20, and you offer them in really good quality at a price so cheap that literally anyone with a regular job can afford their addiction and make ends meet, and you combine that sale with an anonymous form that states their age group, gender, type of drug, amount they buy and combine that with an annual health check it would have the following advantges:

1. All the drug gangs would literally become jobless over night because none of the addicts would buy their cut-up expensive sh.t on the street when they can get much better quality at a much better price at the pharmacy. Since the gangs wouldn't have a market share anymore, there's also no more reason to protect their drug dealing spots any longer, which would drive those crime rates down.

2. Cartels, mafias and terrorist organisation would be making way less money, too.

3. Since the drugs would be really affordable, addicts wouldn't have to resort to criminal activities anymore, which would ease the burden on the cops, the judicial and the prison system and it would save a lot of tax money and drive crime rates way down as well. Instead they could be working productive members of society.

4. Since they'd have to fill out the form and do the annual health check, you'd have actually numbers after a year, you know, which gender of which age group consumes which drugs in which amount and what diseases are spreading amongst them.

5. If you tax the sale of the drugs, governments would have an income instead of wasting billions a year. The tax income could then be used to finance large scale anti-drug campaigns in every classroom of every school, once a year. And they should make those as disgusting as possible, you know, speed freaks with no teeth, an alcoholic who's just an incoherent stinky mess, a junkie with abscesses all over his arms to show the kids what that sh.t actually does to you. So, if you graduate from high-school, you'll have seen that 12 years in a row and if you then still feel the need to consume that crap, then by all means, have at it!

The naked truth is, there will always be people who want to take drugs and as long as there is good money to be made with the salw of drigs, there will always be people willing to satisfy that demand. The only question is, what is the least of the evils, and in my book it is legalization because the way they've been doing for the past 40+ years clearly doesn't work!

Zurich used to have a massive heroin problem in the late 90s. There's a park called Platzspitz right next to the main train station. It used to be filled with junkies and homeless people, lots of criminal activities, used needles everywhere. Local residents complained about it for years until the city finally acted by introducing so-called Fixer Stuben. These are facilities where junkies can go to and buy high quality heroin from the government at 30 Swiss Franks a pop. They're also allowed to shoot up in there and there's medical staff there as well. The result was that the park cleared out completely pretty much over night, dealers became jobless, junkies were off the street and crime rates went way down! Platzspitz has been a family park again ever since. I saw this documentary about it on TV back in early 2000 I think. They interviewed a junkie who was homeless and he gave them an honest account of what that scene and hus life was like. He used to spend 300 Swiss Franks a day on junk. They went back a year later to talk to him again. By that time he actually had found a job and managed to rent a place because now he had to spend only 70 Franks a day to feed the monkey instead of 300.

Of course legalization won't eradicate the problem completely, but it would put a MASSIVE dent in it!

By the way, the reason they have a fentanyl epidemic going on is because the Americans left Afghanistan in 2018 and handed over the country to the Taliban. Since the Taliban wanted some sort of acceptance from other governments, they complied with the request of western countries to clamp down on the opium industry and destroyed 95% of all the poppy fields, which used to supply 84% of the global heroin market. Of course the Mexican and Asian cartels jumped on the opportunity and took over the market with fentanyl. Since fentanyl has a considerably smaller therapeutic window than heroin, which means the gap between the dosage that's required to get the desired medical pain killing effect and the dosage that will kill you is much smaller than that of heroin. On top of that there's no guaranteee that the fentanyl is evenly spread over a pill because these pills are produced in underground labs. So, if all of the fentanyl is in one half and you consume that half, you'll die. The potency of fentanyl is no joke. A few grain of sand sized pieces would kill you and me while you had to snort quite a fat line of heroin to die from that.

To be sure you're doing the right thing, just do the opposite of what UN suggests.

The UN is kidding itself. Firstly the UN has almost no credibility left after so many mess-ups and clueless policies from its ranks stuffed full of policially correct people appointed to look good rather than meritocracy... complete farce really, not to mention having countries like Saudi or Russia on the human rights council etc.

Secondly, countries like Thailand are still ruled by a class of elites that is seriously stuck in the past, and most proper changes in policy have to be ran past a few certain individuals or families so that monopolies and conservative nationalists don't poop their pants... dream on about this one, no way, and they couldn't even swallow weed being legalised for long.

The UN is now like the League of Nations was after WW1, nothing but a non-binding talking shop with little power unless a major backer agrees but that is becoming rare as it's too much hassle... even the security council is done as the veto members can't agree on anything and just paralyze it.

7 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Ending the war on drugs would free up a lot of money that could be used for public purposes.

I tend to agree there, and enforcement of "soft" offences like weed is pointless, but between that and legalizing all drugs there's a big moat. Drugs like Ice, Heroin, Fentanyl, etc actually kill people and ruins lives - those should absolutely not be legalized.

are the un sponsored by drug lords.

It has become a bureaucratic monster used to place political friends on exorbitant salaries.

The veto power given to a few privileged countries renders the decision-making process amorphous.

This is good advice, it's very clear that the "War on Drugs" failed more than 40 years ago, and people are spending excessive amounts of time in prison for the use of recreational drugs, which is beyond ridiculous, and highly destructive to society and local economies.

14 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

Legalization is the only way that actually makes sense. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you do a deep dive, it's the best solution.

Right now, it's criminals that make money with drugs. If you follow the money trail for long enough, you'll inevitably end up at at a cartel, mafia or a terrorist organisation like Al Quaida, Taliban and ISIS, while governments waste billions a year on the absolutely hopeless war against drugs.

If someone gets hooked on hard drugs, they'll fairly quickly get to the point where they can't finance their addiction with their salary anymore because drug smuggling is expensive and they go through numerous hands and everyone wants to make their cut. By the time they get to the consumer, they're expensive and low quality, which means addicts will have to come up with a significant amount of money every day. So now they'll have to resort to criminal activities to make ends meet. Then it's only a question of time before they get caught and then go through the justice system and eventually end up in prison. The cops are paid with tax payers' money and so are the judges and the prison stay.

In countries where there are drug gangs present, you'll also have the crimes committed in relation to the gangs "protecting" or expanding their turf.

When it comes to how many drug addicts there actually are and what diseases are potentially spreading amongst them, all we have is guesstimates.

So, if you legalize drugs and the drugs are produced by governments and then sold through pharmacies anonymously to anyone who wants them over the age of 20, and you offer them in really good quality at a price so cheap that literally anyone with a regular job can afford their addiction and make ends meet, and you combine that sale with an anonymous form that states their age group, gender, type of drug, amount they buy and combine that with an annual health check it would have the following advantges:

1. All the drug gangs would literally become jobless over night because none of the addicts would buy their cut-up expensive sh.t on the street when they can get much better quality at a much better price at the pharmacy. Since the gangs wouldn't have a market share anymore, there's also no more reason to protect their drug dealing spots any longer, which would drive those crime rates down.

2. Cartels, mafias and terrorist organisation would be making way less money, too.

3. Since the drugs would be really affordable, addicts wouldn't have to resort to criminal activities anymore, which would ease the burden on the cops, the judicial and the prison system and it would save a lot of tax money and drive crime rates way down as well. Instead they could be working productive members of society.

4. Since they'd have to fill out the form and do the annual health check, you'd have actually numbers after a year, you know, which gender of which age group consumes which drugs in which amount and what diseases are spreading amongst them.

5. If you tax the sale of the drugs, governments would have an income instead of wasting billions a year. The tax income could then be used to finance large scale anti-drug campaigns in every classroom of every school, once a year. And they should make those as disgusting as possible, you know, speed freaks with no teeth, an alcoholic who's just an incoherent stinky mess, a junkie with abscesses all over his arms to show the kids what that sh.t actually does to you. So, if you graduate from high-school, you'll have seen that 12 years in a row and if you then still feel the need to consume that crap, then by all means, have at it!

The naked truth is, there will always be people who want to take drugs and as long as there is good money to be made with the salw of drigs, there will always be people willing to satisfy that demand. The only question is, what is the least of the evils, and in my book it is legalization because the way they've been doing for the past 40+ years clearly doesn't work!

Zurich used to have a massive heroin problem in the late 90s. There's a park called Platzspitz right next to the main train station. It used to be filled with junkies and homeless people, lots of criminal activities, used needles everywhere. Local residents complained about it for years until the city finally acted by introducing so-called Fixer Stuben. These are facilities where junkies can go to and buy high quality heroin from the government at 30 Swiss Franks a pop. They're also allowed to shoot up in there and there's medical staff there as well. The result was that the park cleared out completely pretty much over night, dealers became jobless, junkies were off the street and crime rates went way down! Platzspitz has been a family park again ever since. I saw this documentary about it on TV back in early 2000 I think. They interviewed a junkie who was homeless and he gave them an honest account of what that scene and hus life was like. He used to spend 300 Swiss Franks a day on junk. They went back a year later to talk to him again. By that time he actually had found a job and managed to rent a place because now he had to spend only 70 Franks a day to feed the monkey instead of 300.

Of course legalization won't eradicate the problem completely, but it would put a MASSIVE dent in it!

By the way, the reason they have a fentanyl epidemic going on is because the Americans left Afghanistan in 2018 and handed over the country to the Taliban. Since the Taliban wanted some sort of acceptance from other governments, they complied with the request of western countries to clamp down on the opium industry and destroyed 95% of all the poppy fields, which used to supply 84% of the global heroin market. Of course the Mexican and Asian cartels jumped on the opportunity and took over the market with fentanyl. Since fentanyl has a considerably smaller therapeutic window than heroin, which means the gap between the dosage that's required to get the desired medical pain killing effect and the dosage that will kill you is much smaller than that of heroin. On top of that there's no guaranteee that the fentanyl is evenly spread over a pill because these pills are produced in underground labs. So, if all of the fentanyl is in one half and you consume that half, you'll die. The potency of fentanyl is no joke. A few grain of sand sized pieces would kill you and me while you had to snort quite a fat line of heroin to die from that.

1. Since the drugs would be really affordable is wishful thinking.

   The price of cannabis has not really gone down in Canada, the USA or Thailand since decriminalization. Taxes were added and growers are laughing.

4 hours ago, Thaddee said:

1. Since the drugs would be really affordable is wishful thinking.

   The price of cannabis has not really gone down in Canada, the USA or Thailand since decriminalization. Taxes were added and growers are laughing.

You didn't get it. Germany, for example, spends 5 billion a year on the war against drugs. If they used that money to subsidize heroin producttion, (Switzerland implemented exactly that over 25 years ago now. So it's NOT just wishful thinking! It actually works), they could definitely sell it cheap enough for anyone to be able to afford it and that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying drugs will become automatically cheaper, if they get legalized!

I regards to the price of weed, I can buy weed in Germany from pharmacies for around 5 bucks a gram and it's good weed. That's cheaper than what I used to pay on the black market 30 years ago and if you take inflation into account it's actually less than half as expensive as what it used to ccost back then!

On 6/29/2026 at 3:59 AM, pacovl46 said:

Right now, it's criminals that make money with drugs. If you follow the money trail for long enough, you'll inevitably end up at at a cartel, mafia or a terrorist organisation like Al Quaida, Taliban and ISIS, while governments waste billions a year on the absolutely hopeless war against drugs.

I will stop right here. I will not read the rest of your writing. Maybe you should watch Kay Griggs videos about who really runs the drug traffic. You clearly have no idea of what you are talking about or you are protecting the system that control the drug traffic. Maybe you should look into Paul Lir Alexander and who runs the cocaine traffic in Latin America. Victor Ostrovsky in his book mention about who took over the poppy's cultivation in Thailand in the 1970's. And I can tell you, it was not the Taliban, ISIS, or Al Quaida. BTW, those so called "terrorists" organizations are probably run by the Israel, USA and British intel.

On 6/29/2026 at 7:16 AM, Thingamabob said:

The DEA and all other similar organisations around the world have cost a lot of time, money and lives while totally failing to in any way to stop, or limit, the drug trade. Best by far to decriminalise, licence, regulate and tax .

It might work if all countries participate. But look what happened when Thailand legalized the cannabis shops. Kids were smoking it. Also, it attracted all the trash from every country in the world. I think that Anutin allowing this to happen opened the doors to the downfall of decent tourism.

Look at the place !

Take a look at what Canada's soft approach to hard drugs has done to its cities.

Absolute carnage.

3 hours ago, GoodieAfterDark said:

I will stop right here. I will not read the rest of your writing. Maybe you should watch Kay Griggs videos about who really runs the drug traffic. You clearly have no idea of what you are talking about or you are protecting the system that control the drug traffic. Maybe you should look into Paul Lir Alexander and who runs the cocaine traffic in Latin America. Victor Ostrovsky in his book mention about who took over the poppy's cultivation in Thailand in the 1970's. And I can tell you, it was not the Taliban, ISIS, or Al Quaida. BTW, those so called "terrorists" organizations are probably run by the Israel, USA and British intel.

You are aware of the fact that heroin is produced in different parts of the world, right? Just because the Taliban & Co had nothing to do with the South-East Asian heroin production, doesn't mean they had nothing to do with the heroin production in their own country!

Also, I'm not denying that some government organisations are involved in the drug trade, but that's totally beside the point.

I'm also aware of who financed and trained all these Middle-Eastern terrorist organisations.

Doesn't change the fact that everything I've stated in my original post is the naked truth, regardless of whether you've read it or not...

7 hours ago, GoodieAfterDark said:

I will stop right here. I will not read the rest of your writing. Maybe you should watch Kay Griggs videos about who really runs the drug traffic. You clearly have no idea of what you are talking about or you are protecting the system that control the drug traffic. Maybe you should look into Paul Lir Alexander and who runs the cocaine traffic in Latin America. Victor Ostrovsky in his book mention about who took over the poppy's cultivation in Thailand in the 1970's. And I can tell you, it was not the Taliban, ISIS, or Al Quaida. BTW, those so called "terrorists" organizations are probably run by the Israel, USA and British intel.

Exactly. Just think of the Honduran president that was one of the largest drug traffickers (enabler) in Central America, and was pardoned by Trump, which just goes to show you how not serious they are about this so-called War on Drugs. Especially Don.

10 hours ago, geisha said:

It might work if all countries participate. But look what happened when Thailand legalized the cannabis shops. Kids were smoking it. Also, it attracted all the trash from every country in the world. I think that Anutin allowing this to happen opened the doors to the downfall of decent tourism.

Look at the place !

I agree, for decriminalisation to work it requires worldwide participation. Almost impossible I fear.

6 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

I agree, for decriminalisation to work it requires worldwide participation. Almost impossible I fear.

No, it doesn't! If the objective is to prevent cartels and drug dealers from making any money with drugs, then it would indeed require worldwide participation, but if you only want to improve the situation in your own country then you won't need the rest of the world.

49 minutes ago, pacovl46 said:

No, it doesn't! If the objective is to prevent cartels and drug dealers from making any money with drugs, then it would indeed require worldwide participation, but if you only want to improve the situation in your own country then you won't need the rest of the world.

The drug business has no borders.

If there was a mandatory, surprise drug screening scheme conducted on all UN staff no matter where or who they are or think they are....the results would shock the world most probably.

No wonder Trump (who I really do not like any more).......but no wonder he wants to cut all American funding to that bunch of bureaucrats, enjoying tax free deals and government paid swanky lunches in their global offices.