it would be good if Taksin could see education as a viable alternative solution to the drug problem...at one time i used to work at a vocational school in bkk with (i found) a v high rate of drug abuse - i persuaded the head to organize a school trip to the rehab centre in Din Daeng and after seeing videos and speaking to rehab patients there drug taking suddenly became a lot less fashionable in the school in the following months...

it seems to me that Taksin's War on Drugs is just a copycat of the Bush/ Blair War on Terrorism and he should bear in mind that the image of Thailand abroad (used to be) very much a peaceful, Buddhist one and choose his role models more carefully...

yes it is common knowledge that drug dealers are forcing the drugs onto the consumers. with such a bright future ahead for most thais it is beyond me why they would turn to drugs for solace.

The explanation I think is that this "Thaksin joy ride" is leaving so many, everyday Thais behind at the curb... as the gap between the super rich and the poor grows wider and wider, disillusionment sets in.

it would be good if Taksin could see education as a viable alternative solution to the drug problem...at one time i used to work at a vocational school in bkk with (i found) a v high rate of drug abuse - i persuaded the head to organize a school trip to the rehab centre in Din Daeng and after seeing videos and speaking to rehab patients there drug taking suddenly became a lot less fashionable in the school in the following months...

You obviously have never seen upper middle class suburban schools in the west where drug use (primarily smoked and snorted cocaine) was rampant EVEN though there was every single drug education program available poured on these kids. They take you to go visit ghetto unfortunates, rehab hospitals, and for bad seeds, there were even trips to the local minors bootcamp as field trips. Every kind of counseling available as well. A professional psychiatrist on campus when many area schools didn't even have a school nurse.

The failure in education is on the part of the family in question, not the government. You don't need million Baht commercial spots to tell you that doing 30 hits of ya-ba a week is bad for you (or that you can't afford that mobile phone or motorcycle, or betting a pile of cash that you don't have on Liverpool covering the spread is going to send you into either drug dealing or prostitution, etc.) if parents are doing their job.

Seems like the thread has turned into a discussion about the complex issue of drug rehabilitation/education etc.

Lets not forget what started it off - namely Mr T's second war on drugs. I don't see his attitude any different to south american governments who do nothing to stop the death squads from piling street children on rubbish tips, or certain central american countries financing the terror police. How about Pol Pot?

Hey, if I don't like it, I'll eradicate it any way I choose.

Good to hear that certain organisations and western governmants are already voicing their concerns.

After all, for justice to be respected, justice must be seen to be done. And I do mean through a judicial process.

mm - i get the feeling everyone is very naive about this, its pretty much common knowledge amongst the better educated and more affulent Thai's that most of the profits from drugs go to senior army and police officers. The real problem is that minions are making too money, hence have a lot of local power over police etc, Thaksin doesn't like this, he wants the power to be centralised to him and his immediate cronies, by removing the lower ranking local mafia money he removes their power, thus moving the money up the social scale. This war is nothing to do with cleaning thailand of drugs, its to do with redistributing the profits and power to the higher echelon, thats why no Senior figures have ever been poped offf or even charged

sorry if that upsets anyone, but thats the way it is

THAILAND: PM launches second war on drugs

07/10/2004 | Asia Pacific Programs

Undaunted by an avalanche of criticism to the outcome of his first war on drugs Thailand's prime minister Thakshin Shinawatra has launched his second offensive, this time vowing to destroy drug bosses. The ten month war on drugs last year left some 2 thousand five hundred people dead ... many the victims of extra-judicial killings. The government has now promised to investigate every death that happened.

Nothing like waiting more than a year AFTER a catastrophe happens before doing something about it...

You sound much like the parrots of the USA who blindly follow Bush without rational or intelligent discussion. They are danergous. Kill them before they kill us!

You're driven by fear and fear alone. And sadly, you are anything but alone in your state.

Fear has always been the go-ground for fascism.

You give frustrated loosers a uniform and a stick and as a group they go for the weaker.

Rationality? Intelligent discussion? Thousands of year of development of our civilisation?

It won't appeal to them. They are unable to grip the concept.

I find it sad that a small group of fascists is using (and gets the opportunity to do so) the thaivisa forum to air their ideas.

That the owners of this forum consider 'ladyboys' a subject which will not please potential sponsors too much, is understandable.

I am convinced that most sponsors either wouldn't like to be associated with an internet-forum on which murder is freely advocated.

Drugs, especially pot are very evil.

Especially pot. It's a gateway drug. You start rolling them in paper and then advance to bongs.

Plus you gain weight.

Very evil. Must be stopped.

For "freedoms" sake of course!

Mr Vietnam

Why not legalise all drugs? In the end we all started the same with mother's milk and later on somewhere down the road a minority of people became drug addicts for whatever reason.

I don't think by legalising drugs suddenly the whole planet will get stoned or coke-crazed same as not everybody becomes a smoker or alcoholic.

You could go on for years about this debate, but my stance is as follows...

If alcohol were illegal, would there be this many alcoholics?

If smoking were illegal, would there be this many smokers?

My opinion is probably not, but the cases of alcoholism would be much more extreme and dangerous. No point mentioning smoking tobacco though – if it was illegal, just like cannabis, I have a good idea what the majority of people would choose!

Anyways, sorry for dragging this further off-topic from Thaksin’s bonehead strategies.

You posters who are in favor of the execution style drug solution should look back in history. Dont have to go that far, just look at Hitler's final solution to a problem. Whats next after drugs. Visa overstays? Public drunkeness? Once you turn a police force into assasins no matter what the crime there is no turning these assasins who are just following orders back into humans again, and then no one is safe from this barbarism.