High On Longkong

[sbk]

High on longkong

By The Nation

Published on April 3, 2009

Teens in South are making new illicit drug from fruit tree

Teenagers in the South have been using the leaves of the longkong tree to concoct a new illicit drug, a security taskforce member has revealed.

Dubbed "8 x 10", the new substance also contains methamphetamine.

"We found this concoction during a recent crackdown on Kratom leaves, which are used as a stimulant," says Lieutenant Thanu Nuangutai, a member of the taskforce under the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC).

Longkong is indigenous to the South.

"We first found the longkongdrug concocฌtion in Songkhla, but soon discovered it in Ranong, Chumphon, and Surat Thani," says Thanu.

Yupin Ongart, direcฌtor of Ranong Youth Observation and Protection Centre, says that all the young delinquents sent to her facility this year have been involved in drugs.

She adds that family problems ware the main reason why youths turned to drugs.

"Youths from families that are warm and caring tend to have immunity against drugs and other social ills."

The ISOC is planning to offer training and advice to local youths in Ranong and Chumphon on how to avoid getting involved in drugs and other antisocial behaviour.

The training will cover 600 youths aged 14 to 25 years.

The Nation

[hermespan]

Kratom (Mitragyna Speciosa)

A Canadian mailorder supplier of this herb claims that mere possession is severely punished in the Kingdom of Thailand. Previously capital punishment. I find it heard to believe that a person would be killed for experimenting with mind-altering substances or curing some mental illness or physical problem with apropriate doses. Mind you, in USA, even youths go to prison for mere possession of cannabis, something in Canada and Switzerland we find bizarre. Anyone care to speculate why the herbs and supplements tolerated in much of the west are prohibited in LOS? More important, with someone who travels with his only herbal apothecary, what happens to tourists who arrive with substances that are legal in their own countries, but *maybe* illegal in Thailand? It's not like they post a list on the Customs form of what is forbidden. I don't mean obvious ones like infamous narcotics, but rather relatively unknown herbs used for health maintenance. Seizure? Expulsion? Jail? Fines? Anyone had experience getting caught? That would be more useful. My experience is that Customs searches are almost non-existent and presuming one isn't carrying ten kilos of something that sniffer dogs look for, no one will ever be the wiser. It's not like I am planning on wholesale importation for resale, just considering bringing my own stock of exotic herns for a year of personal use in S.E. Asia. Not kratom by the way. I have read on this forum of kava (one technically illegal example) being shipepd in and received with no problems whatsoever. Don't know if it ws labelled as such.