Australian Jailed For Life In Thailand

[gatorhead333]

Hooray for the guy who escaped the clutches of these Thai cop maniacs with their idiotic war on drugs.

----------------

We're Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works

By Hodding Carter III.

There is clearly no point in beating a dead horse, whether you are a politician or a columnist, but sometimes you have to do it just the same, if only for the record. So, for the record, here's another attempt to argue that a majority of the American people and their elected representatives can be and are wrong about the way they have chosen to wage the "war against drugs." Prohibition can't work, won't work and has never worked, but it can and does have monumentally costly effects on the criminal justice system and on the integrity of government at every level.

Experience should be the best teacher, and my experience with prohibition is a little more recent than most Americans for whom the "noble experiment" ended with repeal in 1933. In my home state of Mississippi, it lasted for an additional 33 years, and for all those years it was a truism that the drinkers had their liquor, the preachers had their prohibition and the sheriffs made the money. Al Capone would have been proud of the latitude that bootleggers were able to buy with their payoffs of constables, deputies, police chiefs and sheriffs across the state.

But as a first-rate series in the New York Times made clear early last year, Mississippi's prohibition-era corruption (and Chicago's before that) was penny ante stuff compared with what is happening in the U.S. today. From Brooklyn police precincts to Miami's police stations to rural Georgia courthouses, big drug money is purchasing major breakdowns in law enforcement. Sheriffs, other policemen and now judges are being bought up by the gross. But that money, with the net profits for the drug traffickers estimated at anywhere from $40 billion to $100 billion a year, is also buying up banks, legitimate businesses and, to the south of us, entire governments. The latter becomes an increasingly likely outcome in a number of cities and states in this country as well. Cicero, Ill., during Prohibition is an instructive case in point.

The money to be made from an illegal product that has about 23 million current users in this country also explains why its sale is so attractive on the mean streets of America's big cities. A street salesman can gross about $2,500 a day in Washington, which puts him in the pay category of a local television anchor, and this in a neighborhood of dead-end job chances.

Since the courts and jails are already swamped beyond capacity by the arrests that are routinely made (44,000 drug dealers and users over a two-year period in Washington alone, for instance) and since those arrests barely skim the top of the pond, arguing that stricter enforcement is the answer begs a larger question: Who is going to pay the billions of dollars required to build the prisons, hire the judges, train the policemen and employ the prosecutors needed for the load already on hand, let alone the huge one yet to come if we ever get serious about arresting dealers and users?

Much is made of the cost of drug addiction, and it should be, but the current breakdown in the criminal justice system is not one of them. That breakdown is the result of prohibition, not addiction. Drug addiction, after all, does not come close to the far vaster problems of alcohol and tobacco addiction (as former Surgeon General Koop correctly noted, tobacco is at least as addictive as heroin). Hard drugs are estimated to kill 4,000 people a year directly and several tens of thousands a year indirectly. Alcohol kills at least 100,000 a year, addicts millions more and costs the marketplace billions of dollars. Tobacco kills over 300,000 a year, addicts tens of millions and fouls the atmosphere as well. But neither alcohol nor tobacco threaten to subvert our system of law and order, because they are treated as personal and societal problems rather than as criminal ones.

Indeed, every argument that is made for prohibiting the use of currently illegal drugs can be made even more convincingly about tobacco and alcohol. The effects on the unborn? Staggeringly direct. The effects on adolescents? Alcoholism is the addiction of choice for young Americans on a ratio of about 100 to one. Lethal effect? Tobacco's murderous results are not a matter of debate anywhere outside the Tobacco Institute.

Which leaves the lingering and legitimate fear that legalization might produce a surge in use. It probably would, although not nearly as dramatic a one as opponents usually estimate. The fact is that personal use of marijuana, whatever the local laws may say, has been virtually decriminalized for some time now, but there has been a stabilization or slight decline in use, rather than an increase, for several years. Heroin addiction has held steady at about 500,000 people for some time, though the street price of heroin is far lower now than it used to be. Use of cocaine in its old form also seems to have stopped climbing and begun to drop off among young and old alike, though there is an abundantly available supply.

That leaves crack cocaine, stalker of the inner city and terror of the suburbs. Instant and addictive in effect, easy to use and relatively cheap to buy, it is a personality-destroying substance that is a clear menace to its users. But it is hard to imagine it being any more accessible under legalization than it is in most cities today under prohibition, while the financial incentives for promoting its use would virtually disappear with legalization.

Proponents of legalization should not try to fuzz the issue, nonetheless. Addiction levels might increase, at least temporarily, if legal sanctions were removed. That happened after the repeal of Prohibition, or so at least some studies have suggested. But while that would be a personal disaster for the addicts and their families, and would involve larger costs to society as a whole, those costs would be minuscule compared with the costs of continued prohibition.

The young Capones of today own the inner cities and the wholesalers behind these young retailers are rapidly buying up the larger system which is supposed to control them. Prohibition gave us the Mafia and organized crime on a scale that has been with us ever since. The new prohibition is writing a new chapter on that old text. hel_l-bent on learning nothing from history, we are witnessing its repetition, predictably enough, as tragedy.

---

Reprinted with permission of Wall Street Journal Jul 13, 1989. Mr. Carter is a political commentator who heads a television production firm.

HEY STOP wait...what about the children? the little children ??when the all chips fall and the restriction come down what happens then???

personally some of the goof balls talking like 10-15 years in a Thai pen is nothing.... try 10 days,maybe 10 hours,,,.. go beserk in 10 minutes..... hel_l on earth.

[walterego]

Here is a Australian news report:

of interest is his mention of a man named Joseph (perhaps just a fiction of his imagination an effort to 'appear' helpful'), perhaps something is lost in interpretation and Joseph is the wanted man? - perhaps.

AAP

"Aussie gets life for Thai heroin charge

By Ron Corben, AAP August 5, 2009, 4:56 pm

Gaunt and in chains, Australian Andrew Hood has escaped the death penalty but has been jailed for life for trying to smuggle heroin from Thailand.

Hood, a former storeman from the Sydney suburb of Annandale, had pleaded guilty to attempting to traffic up to three kilograms of heroin through Bangkok Airport in December last year.

In Rajadapisek Criminal Court on Wednesday, the 36-year-old gave a simple "Yes" when asked by the judge if he understood the sentence.

A court-appointed lawyer represented Hood, along with a translator who informed him of the penalty.

The judge, reading the verdict, said Thai police in December were informed Hood was about to attempt to leave Thailand with heroin strapped to his body.

He was detained and searched as he prepared to board a British Airways flight bound for Sydney.

Police found seven bags of heroin wrapped around his stomach and thighs. Reports said the heroin had an estimated street value of 12 million baht ($A480,000).

The judge said Hood confessed as soon as he was detained.

She said Hood had spoken of another man named Joseph who asked him take the heroin to Australia. The man helped strap the heroin on him.

Hood had been expected to receive several thousand dollars to take the drugs to Australia.

In Thailand, heroin trafficking carries the death penalty. The judge said that as Hood had pleaded guilty she reduced the sentence to life imprisonment.

Hood said little after the verdict other than he was disappointed by the lengthy jail term. In December, soon after his arrest, he spoke of how devastated he was by the prospect of a lifetime in jail.

He appeared gaunt as he arrived from Klong Prem maximum security prison on Wednesday.

"Yes, I am," he told journalists when asked if he was a lot slimmer.

He acknowledged, before the hearing, the prospect of a lengthy sentence.

In May, he told the court there was "no way I'm fighting this one. You can't win. I've been informed by plenty of people".

Australian officials attended the court hearing and were providing Hood with consular assistance. He was later returned to the Klong Prem prison.

There are currently 13 Australians in Thai jails for a range of offences including drug trafficking."

hope ya got ya floaties!

Swim that Meekong Joseph get to Burma or Laos Mule be right mate!

Edited August 5, 2009 by walterego

[Canada]

Listen to you all, sitting their in your nice comfy chairs in front of your up to date computers - rubbing your little hands with glee (especially the newbies, who we probably won't hear from again).

Have you ever, ever been so down on your luck that you would do anything for a quick buck? Even if your life is on the line for it? I bet you haven't? All little mollycoddled babies!!

And you, Mr I hope he gets AIDS, you are a sicko.

I agree with your line of thinking...I think...

The "village gossip" is worse than the original story. If this forum represented a cross-section of our society, we would be in trouble. Life is full of choices and risks. This guy risked far too much. Does that make him not deserving of compassion?

This story represents much more than "a guy made a bad choice" if you care to look for the rest of it. It's more about questions; than answers and judgements.

[hervelon]

It's disappointing that someone hauling smack out of the Kingdom gets life, but farang murderers here often get a only few years and serial pedophiles are frequently released so the police can extort them again and again.

got to agree with that....

[hervelon]

Listen to you all, sitting their in your nice comfy chairs in front of your up to date computers - rubbing your little hands with glee (especially the newbies, who we probably won't hear from again).

Have you ever, ever been so down on your luck that you would do anything for a quick buck? Even if your life is on the line for it? I bet you haven't? All little mollycoddled babies!!

And you, Mr I hope he gets AIDS, you are a sicko.

I agree with your line of thinking...I think...

The "village gossip" is worse than the original story. If this forum represented a cross-section of our society, we would be in trouble. Life is full of choices and risks. This guy risked far too much. Does that make him not deserving of compassion?

This story represents much more than "a guy made a bad choice" if you care to look for the rest of it. It's more about questions; than answers and judgements.

What i want to know where are the guy(sss) who sold it to him in the first place...he was probably just a runner... so yes compassion is needed even though he was dead stupid to get involved in it...

[Sisaketmike]

Australian jailed for life in Thailand

Andrew Hood pleaded guilty to the crime.

(Reuters: Sukree Sukplang, file photo)

BANGKOK: -- An Australian man who confessed to trying to smuggle three kilograms of heroin out of Thailand has been sentenced to life in jail.

Police arrested Andrew Hood, 37, in early December last year as he tried to leave Bangkok airport for Sydney.

During Hood's trial earlier this month, two police officers gave evidence and showed photographs of a number of packages taped to his stomach and legs.

The packages contained heroin worth about $500,000.

When he was first detained, Hood told reporters he attempted to smuggle the drugs for the money.

Hood's feet were chained as he stood in the court as the verdict was read.

The judge told him he was due a death sentence, but his confession meant he was given a jail term instead.

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

Thai authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the 34-year-old Australian who was with Hood at the time he was arrested, but who escaped.

-- abc.net.au 2009-08-05

I hope that there's anybody around who knows him........Useless to make a statement now that Heroin kills. If there's anybody who "helped' him to be there, sorry, relatives first... let me give you some advise.: he really needs help from 'outside' now. 1.Money..( you can buy a lot if you've got cash).2. Letters from anybody. Books, stuff to learn something, A MASK for protection against the swine flu, visitors who come out crying, his daughter who needs support from others, holy shit there's hel_l a lot more he needs now. Think about it. Some people only make 5 years under those circumstances. I'm with you, my students will write you a letter soon. Let's keep in touch, you'll receive a letter from high school students from the 'Isan' soon. Take care your ass.!!!!

[swiss kiwi]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Not much to choose between them, really. In some ways, a lifetime in a Thai jail is probably worse than death. What a foolish thing to do though.

[jumparound]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Perhaps he DID mean that. I'd take a death sentence over the prospect of spending the rest of my life in a Thai prison.

Hang on a minute

The last thing you want when near death is death.

Bangkwang better than death.

He will do 10yrs.

[walterego]

the name mentioned is Joseph as an acomplice who actually straped the bags to him. (should be able to dust those or get some DNA that can be referenced at least back to australian DNA DBs) if his story is in fact even 1% true.

Apparently the whole plan was hatched back in Kings cross (Kings cross is the main red light district of Australia in Sydney (rivaling the Valley QLD St Kilda VIC in other states) it has an abundant and colourful drug subculture. At an N.A. meeting (thats Narcotics anonymous for those who dont know or wish to remain anonymous).

Therefore the entire trip was completly pre-meditated and perhaps finaced by an outside source.

Where in the world is Wally? er Joseph sorry>

links:

http://drugaddict.livejournal.com/3486873.html

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21...362-948,00.html

Edited August 5, 2009 by walterego

[jackr]

I read in the Last Executioner written by

Chavoret Jaruboon

...that Prauth Sanun, a member of the Bang Kwang execution team (who had executed a drug dealer) was later arrested carrying 700,000 amphetamine pills. Prath is is now on death row.

A death sentence possible for carrying heroin ?

That is madness compared to the sentences for other crimes

It doesn't matter, them's the rules, no point crying about it.

Have you ever, ever been so down on your luck that you would do anything for a quick buck? Even if your life is on the line for it? I bet you haven't? All little mollycoddled babies!!

I'd rather slit my own throat if it meant doing shit like this and ultimately f*cking up other people's lives. Tough titties.

Edited August 5, 2009 by jackr

[walterego]

Also for those who wish him to rot in a cell for the rest of his life (I personally dont and strongly advocate human rights both for criminals and civillians)

Sorry to disapoint you.

Australia has an alive and well Prisoner exchange program with Thailand (hence why there are only 13 Aussies serving sentences in Thai jails now).

The waiting list is anywhere between 2 and 5 years. on return to Australia he will appeal and at worst case scenario be released on the basis of time served. 6 months after arival home.

I just imagine for the day when an illegal market for people like him wont exist and you can do as you want with your own body... after all it is your body.

Edited August 5, 2009 by walterego

[guruofvinyl]

It amazes me that with all the life sentences handed out, fully covered by the media, that fools in full knowledge of the conditions in Thai prisons still take a chance with their futures when most have the safety net of a welfare system back home. I wonder if the success rate is so high that most mules make it through and they consider it a safe bet. Junkies numbed beyond repair, I can understand, but the rest. Madness beyond belief.

Regards Bojo

Bojo, only around 12-15% of the runners are caught.

But, what I would like to know is where and from whom he obtained the "parcels"

And where and to whom he had to deliver.

I have a feeling that not much was done to try to find the source or the destination.

If you follow the history of these arrests you might come to the conclusion that the same parcels are used over and over again and the people arrested are arrested because they buy the parcels from the same people over and over again. No one is going to be able to buy kilos of heroin from a clean source--the sellers and busters are the same people.

[tropo]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Perhaps he DID mean that. I'd take a death sentence over the prospect of spending the rest of my life in a Thai prison.

That's what thought he meant too. I would also prefer the death sentence if it were me.

What was he thinking? The chances of getting the heroine past the dogs at Sydney airport were far slimmer than making it through Suvarnabhumi. Perhaps he thought if he was caught it would be in Australia...and not spend his whole life in prison.

I don't know where they get their figures about 3kg of heroin being worth AUD$480,000.

From The Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...from=public_rss

"According to recent arrest reports, the AFP reckons heroin is worth about $1 million a kilogram on the streets of Australia. It says a kilogram of opium is sold in Burma for about $US265 (about $415). Hood was arrested with 3kg on him, conservatively worth $840,000 wholesale in Australia, with a street value in the region of $3 million.

Edited August 5, 2009 by tropo

[tropo]

Also for those who wish him to rot in a cell for the rest of his life (I personally dont and strongly advocate human rights both for criminals and civillians)

Sorry to disapoint you.

Australia has an alive and well Prisoner exchange program with Thailand (hence why there are only 13 Aussies serving sentences in Thai jails now).

The waiting list is anywhere between 2 and 5 years. on return to Australia he will appeal and at worst case scenario be released on the basis of time served. 6 months after arival home.

I just imagine for the day when an illegal market for people like him wont exist and you can do as you want with your own body... after all it is your body.

Here's some more information about the prisoner exchange program between Thailand and Australia:

http://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2002/fa136a_02.html

Joint Media Release

26 September 2002

Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer and Minister for Justice and Customs Senator Ellsion

Australia and Thailand Ratify Prisoner Exchange Treaty

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, and the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Chris Ellison, today announced that Australia and Thailand have ratified a transfer of prisoners treaty.

The agreement with Thailand is Australia's first bilateral treaty allowing for the international transfer of prisoners and signals the start of the International Transfer of Prisoners scheme in Australia.

The treaty is a most welcome development and shows the strength of the relationship between the two nations.

Ratification of the treaty opens the way for Australians held in Thai prisons and Thais imprisoned in Australia to apply to return to their home country to serve out the remainder of their prison sentence.

Australians returned under these arrangements would remain in prison to serve out their sentences but would do so in circumstances that would reduce the hardship caused to their families and significantly enhance the prospects of rehabilitation.

The Commonwealth Government has also made arrangements for Australia's International Transfer of Prisoners scheme to extend to more than 50 other countries through the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. Transfers will be possible between Australia and the countries that are Parties to the Convention from 1 January 2003.

Transfers will be carried out on a consensual basis requiring agreement by the authorities of the transfer country, the Commonwealth Government, the relevant Australian State or Territory government and the prisoner.

Information materials will be disseminated to advise potentially eligible prisoners of the start of the scheme and provide them with information on how to apply for a transfer.

[MUYTHAI]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Can we get a petition going for a death sentence?? We could probably get 50,000,000 signatures easily.

I dislike heroin, meth, and the MANY other pharmaceutical drugs that can lead to physical addiction BUT puropsefully killing (murdering) someone because they got caught muling, using, or dealing drugs worse. I doubt that you would get many signatures from the educated masses in the "western world" or even from the Thai locals. Most of the Thai locals I know would not support murdering the man...whether he be farang or Thai. The younger generation is more logical than most of the older generation that were brainwashed by conservative extremist's anti-drug propaganda of the 50's 60's, etc. You must be a brainwashed old guy or possess very primative, illogical, or conservative thought processes. A mental throwback perhaps. Since you are in China you might get many signatures. It is a fascist, dictatorial regime, and society with many uneducated, brainwashed people.

[Jaydillon]

It amazes me that with all the life sentences handed out, fully covered by the media, that fools in full knowledge of the conditions in Thai prisons still take a chance with their futures when most have the safety net of a welfare system back home. I wonder if the success rate is so high that most mules make it through and they consider it a safe bet. Junkies numbed beyond repair, I can understand, but the rest. Madness beyond belief.

Regards Bojo

your 100% right mate

[moe666]

Were ever you go there is always that 10 percent who just don't get it.

[Lucifer]

and then there's ......

German officials say they caught a Thai woman smuggling cocaine in her body, only to find that - unbeknownst to her - she was also carrying a baby.

The 30-year-old woman was arrested at Frankfurt airport. An X-ray revealed 41 packets of cocaine in her stomach, each weighing 0.3 ounces (8 grams).

She was taken to hospital to have the drugs removed. Doctors there then discovered that she was pregnant.

The woman, who said she was not aware of the pregnancy, is now behind bars.

"The young woman did not know that she was not just endangering her own life by carrying this risky cargo in her body," Hans-Juergen Schmidt, a spokesman for the customs office in Frankfurt, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

She was arrested last week after arriving in Germany on a flight from South America.

From todays BBC

[Tokay]

Considering he was leaving Thailand with it, they should let the Aussie police take custody of him and let him serve in his home country. If he was bringing it into Thailand, let him stay here.

Whatever happens to him, he should have known better. Stupid move.

[ericthai]

Hooray for the guy who escaped the clutches of these Thai cop maniacs with their idiotic war on drugs.

----------------

We're Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works

By Hodding Carter III.

There is clearly no point in beating a dead horse, whether you are a politician or a columnist, but sometimes you have to do it just the same, if only for the record. So, for the record, here's another attempt to argue that a majority of the American people and their elected representatives can be and are wrong about the way they have chosen to wage the "war against drugs." Prohibition can't work, won't work and has never worked, but it can and does have monumentally costly effects on the criminal justice system and on the integrity of government at every level.

Experience should be the best teacher, and my experience with prohibition is a little more recent than most Americans for whom the "noble experiment" ended with repeal in 1933. In my home state of Mississippi, it lasted for an additional 33 years, and for all those years it was a truism that the drinkers had their liquor, the preachers had their prohibition and the sheriffs made the money. Al Capone would have been proud of the latitude that bootleggers were able to buy with their payoffs of constables, deputies, police chiefs and sheriffs across the state.

But as a first-rate series in the New York Times made clear early last year, Mississippi's prohibition-era corruption (and Chicago's before that) was penny ante stuff compared with what is happening in the U.S. today. From Brooklyn police precincts to Miami's police stations to rural Georgia courthouses, big drug money is purchasing major breakdowns in law enforcement. Sheriffs, other policemen and now judges are being bought up by the gross. But that money, with the net profits for the drug traffickers estimated at anywhere from $40 billion to $100 billion a year, is also buying up banks, legitimate businesses and, to the south of us, entire governments. The latter becomes an increasingly likely outcome in a number of cities and states in this country as well. Cicero, Ill., during Prohibition is an instructive case in point.

The money to be made from an illegal product that has about 23 million current users in this country also explains why its sale is so attractive on the mean streets of America's big cities. A street salesman can gross about $2,500 a day in Washington, which puts him in the pay category of a local television anchor, and this in a neighborhood of dead-end job chances.

Since the courts and jails are already swamped beyond capacity by the arrests that are routinely made (44,000 drug dealers and users over a two-year period in Washington alone, for instance) and since those arrests barely skim the top of the pond, arguing that stricter enforcement is the answer begs a larger question: Who is going to pay the billions of dollars required to build the prisons, hire the judges, train the policemen and employ the prosecutors needed for the load already on hand, let alone the huge one yet to come if we ever get serious about arresting dealers and users?

Much is made of the cost of drug addiction, and it should be, but the current breakdown in the criminal justice system is not one of them. That breakdown is the result of prohibition, not addiction. Drug addiction, after all, does not come close to the far vaster problems of alcohol and tobacco addiction (as former Surgeon General Koop correctly noted, tobacco is at least as addictive as heroin). Hard drugs are estimated to kill 4,000 people a year directly and several tens of thousands a year indirectly. Alcohol kills at least 100,000 a year, addicts millions more and costs the marketplace billions of dollars. Tobacco kills over 300,000 a year, addicts tens of millions and fouls the atmosphere as well. But neither alcohol nor tobacco threaten to subvert our system of law and order, because they are treated as personal and societal problems rather than as criminal ones.

Indeed, every argument that is made for prohibiting the use of currently illegal drugs can be made even more convincingly about tobacco and alcohol. The effects on the unborn? Staggeringly direct. The effects on adolescents? Alcoholism is the addiction of choice for young Americans on a ratio of about 100 to one. Lethal effect? Tobacco's murderous results are not a matter of debate anywhere outside the Tobacco Institute.

Which leaves the lingering and legitimate fear that legalization might produce a surge in use. It probably would, although not nearly as dramatic a one as opponents usually estimate. The fact is that personal use of marijuana, whatever the local laws may say, has been virtually decriminalized for some time now, but there has been a stabilization or slight decline in use, rather than an increase, for several years. Heroin addiction has held steady at about 500,000 people for some time, though the street price of heroin is far lower now than it used to be. Use of cocaine in its old form also seems to have stopped climbing and begun to drop off among young and old alike, though there is an abundantly available supply.

That leaves crack cocaine, stalker of the inner city and terror of the suburbs. Instant and addictive in effect, easy to use and relatively cheap to buy, it is a personality-destroying substance that is a clear menace to its users. But it is hard to imagine it being any more accessible under legalization than it is in most cities today under prohibition, while the financial incentives for promoting its use would virtually disappear with legalization.

Proponents of legalization should not try to fuzz the issue, nonetheless. Addiction levels might increase, at least temporarily, if legal sanctions were removed. That happened after the repeal of Prohibition, or so at least some studies have suggested. But while that would be a personal disaster for the addicts and their families, and would involve larger costs to society as a whole, those costs would be minuscule compared with the costs of continued prohibition.

The young Capones of today own the inner cities and the wholesalers behind these young retailers are rapidly buying up the larger system which is supposed to control them. Prohibition gave us the Mafia and organized crime on a scale that has been with us ever since. The new prohibition is writing a new chapter on that old text. hel_l-bent on learning nothing from history, we are witnessing its repetition, predictably enough, as tragedy.

---

Reprinted with permission of Wall Street Journal Jul 13, 1989. Mr. Carter is a political commentator who heads a television production firm.

They seem to be comparing apples with oranges here.

Alcohol and Heroin are totally different. Heroine is VERY VERY addictive and absolutely ruins peoples lives, guaranteed. There is no such thing as a "casual heroine user" or "social user", like a social drinker or whatever.

So I cant see any real alternative. Making Heroine legal (cheap and easily accessible) isnt going to make it easier for people to kick their habit. I for one am a cigarette smoker and I would WELCOME any law that made cigarettes illegal. I have tried so many times to give up, but I find I myself going to the local shop to buy a pack. If they weren't easily available, I would have given up by now.

People usually get addicted to heroin because they have deep rooted emotional issues and the drug takes their pain away. However the drug itself does not help them in any way in the long run. Heroin addiction is a reflection of our modern society and the problems people have, usually from childhood, breakdowns of the family, rape, abuse, poverty and all the other issues that give people emotional and psychological problems. Also many people are "born" with psychological problems - for example you can find physical differences in the brains of bi-polar people to healthy people.

I think in many cases its unkind to label people as "bad" "scum" etc because of their heroin addiction. But yes the drug does ruin people and turn otherwise good people into killers, muggers. People who could kill their own grandmother and then have a shot and feel OK again.

I need to disagree with you. Alcohol is just has bad, when a person has an addictive trait, thats it they will be addicted no matter what that vice. My dad was an alcoholic and growing up with him was hel_l. It is just as bad if not worse than a heroin user. Most alcoholics are aggressive and looking for a fight, heroin addicts will be more timid and just want to sleep it off. My cousin was a heroin addict, he caused the family problems because he would rob houses and steel money from the family to get money for the drugs, but did not physically abuse anyone. My dad on the other hand would be fighting with anyone, I agree that they should legalize drugs and then start program to educate, you will always have the poor souls that will lose, but there is no way the war on drugs is winning. Marijuana is even less destructive than alcohol, no body has ever died from marijuana. I believe if the money spent on the war on drugs was used to health care and education society as a whole would be much better off.

[Considered Opinion]

It's disappointing that someone hauling smack out of the Kingdom gets life, but farang murderers here often get a only few years and serial pedophiles are frequently released so the police can extort them again and again.

And the source of this is... ?

[zzaa09]

Were ever you go there is always that 10 percent who just don't get it.

Only ten? Rather limited, yes?

[marsteele]

Oh the poor bugger is disapointed with his life sentence. What did he expect for such a crime? 12 months in prison out in 1 month for good behaviour and time already served as you would get in Australia. I hope he enjoys his time in the BKK Hilton. No private cell with clean sheets, T.V, climate control, swimming pool, gym, 3 good meals a day, top medical services, internet phone access, weekend leave.

Thai punishment truely fits the crime and he balanced up the risks before taking the plunge so enjoy your life scum.

[bniff]

Australian jailed for life in Thailand

Andrew Hood pleaded guilty to the crime.

(Reuters: Sukree Sukplang, file photo)

BANGKOK: -- An Australian man who confessed to trying to smuggle three kilograms of heroin out of Thailand has been sentenced to life in jail.

Police arrested Andrew Hood, 37, in early December last year as he tried to leave Bangkok airport for Sydney.

During Hood's trial earlier this month, two police officers gave evidence and showed photographs of a number of packages taped to his stomach and legs.

The packages contained heroin worth about $500,000.

When he was first detained, Hood told reporters he attempted to smuggle the drugs for the money.

Hood's feet were chained as he stood in the court as the verdict was read.

The judge told him he was due a death sentence, but his confession meant he was given a jail term instead.

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

Thai authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the 34-year-old Australian who was with Hood at the time he was arrested, but who escaped.

-- abc.net.au 2009-08-05

Here is the key.....An Australian man who confessed to trying to smuggle three kilograms of heroin out of Thailand.

OUT OF THAILAND!!!!!! NOT IN!!!!! Did he bring it with him as traveling salesman? Was it grown or processed in Thailand? Did another country smuggle in with no problems? Is it easy to access or buy? Is this a big problem with authorities or another made for TV because he can't pay the FINE.

[hhgz]

"I'd take a death sentence over the prospect of spending the rest of my life in a Thai prison."

Then, after you have been caught smuggling drugs, plead not guilty.

[thairay]

Yes you DO have recreational heroin users - same as "social" drinkers, but less socially acceptable, clearly.

The Dealer who supplied the heroin was probably the person who gave up this Aussie to the police, for money, thus increasing his income, or to wriggle out of previous trouble with the police.

America does lead the world on the drugs issue - probably as the Yank govt. IS the worlds biggest drug dealer. To make it legal would make things visible. The present arrangement suits. There is plenty of documented evidence for this assertion - remember Vietnam? and the Contras?

sensible and true..ollie north is now proclaimed a hero after being in the illegal arms and drugs business...noriega was a kidnapped head of state,just about the time the u.s. owed a fortune in fees to use the panama canal,,his co accused was castro,no arrest there......i have seen american helicopters flying over fields of grass to spray the small plot where the cameras were waiting in mexico..sure the heroin business is nasty but the people who have friends , relatives ,and personally use restricted drugs ,either now or when in school should by the sound of the postings here be locked up too..i would guess there are a few who post here who tried something but judge themselves innocent..innocent or guilty is usually just a matter of location or time in history...i cannot guess the reason he did this .as so many of you seem to be able..i only know he chose the wrong place at the wrong time and that he will pay the price due here and now..for those who would like him dead shame on you

[Bjorn]

Well done Thailand!! It would be better though if he got death sentence. There is always a risk that the Australian authorities will "claim him back". Besides that, this guy will be a cost burden for Thailand, he will need food, shower, use of electricity, etc etc for a LIFETIME. That ends up with a lot of money. Just kill him. (He is dealing with a lethal drug that kills others, so why be soft and give him only the lifr sentence...)

[Will27]

Considering he was leaving Thailand with it, they should let the Aussie police take custody of him and let him serve in his home country. If he was bringing it into Thailand, let him stay here.

Whatever happens to him, he should have known better. Stupid move.

Sorry mate,

Can't agree with you there.

Crime was committed on Thai soil so

that's where he should do the time.

I don't agree with the majority of

posters here wanting him to die,

and suffer etc, but I don't think

the Aussie taxpayers should pay

have to pay for him doing time in

an Australian jail. We probably will

after 7 or 8 years when he gets

transferred back to Oz anyway

though.

Regards

Will

[Grey11]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Can we get a petition going for a death sentence?? We could probably get 50,000,000 signatures easily.

Just wait until Taksin's back in the driver's seat. No petition will be needed. He'll just slip and hit his head in the shower!

I think Toxin had somewhere the neighborhood of 3,000 enemies - listed as drug dealers - killed. It was probably many more. As much as Thaksin hated foreigners (Westerners, not Chinese like himself) he would have probably just had this guy killed at the police station. In this case 5 years would be a fair sentence. He now faces death by the swine flu and/or tuberculosis in a filthy Thai prison.

[wrathfultalon]

It amazes me that with all the life sentences handed out, fully covered by the media, that fools in full knowledge of the conditions in Thai prisons still take a chance with their futures when most have the safety net of a welfare system back home. I wonder if the success rate is so high that most mules make it through and they consider it a safe bet. Junkies numbed beyond repair, I can understand, but the rest. Madness beyond belief.

Regards Bojo

When i worked in Iraq we would pass through Dubai which is very strict about drugs. Our company would go on and on about not having any on us unless we had a prescription. Needless to say some wise guy tried to bring some through and got caught, automatic 25 years. the thing there is your family is responsible for bringing you food and any other items you may need.

We all knew this and yet he still did it, and a year later another guy did the same thing! you cant fix stupid.