Govt's War Against Drug To Start

[george]

Govt's war against drug to start

BANGKOK: -- The Thai government plans to launch its third war against drugs as a result of growing concerns over increased attempts to smuggle drugs into Thailand from neighbouring countries.

The third war against drugs will be launched next week and run until June, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Saturday during his weekly radio address.

Mr. Thaksin will formally launch the campaign on Monday at the Police Club in Bangkok.

Special rewards will be given to those who apprehend drug smugglers during the Songkran festival, he said.

Narcotic smugglers are using the opportunity of government officials and security forces being pre-occupation with security matters to try to smuggle drugs into the country, he said.

Drug smuggling will continue as long as Thailand's neighbours remain poor, are dogged by internal fighting and border officials are inefficient, Mr. Thaksin said.

The Thai government will continue battle against drugs, he stressed.

Many young people have already kicked the habit but the government is totally committed to making sure the new generation is not addicted to drugs, he added.

--TNA 2005-04-10

[george]

New drug war to target bars and night clubs in big cities

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has launched a third campaign against drugs, despite an avalanche of criticism after more than 2,500 people were killed in his first war on drugs in 2003.

Mr Thaksin has launched the three-month campaign at police headquarters in Bangkok, asking authorities to focus on the country's bars and nightclubs in big cities.

Mr Thaksin's 2003 war on drugs left an estimated 2,894 people dead nationwide.

The killings were widely criticised by human right activists.

Police have insisted that only 72 people were killed by security forces, and that 1,329 of the deaths were related to drugs.

The second round of the war on drugs was in 2004, but authorities have not revealed how many people were killed during that crackdown.

--Radio Australia 2005-04-12

[george]

Thaksin launches War on Drugs III

Wants country free of producers by year-end

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday launched his government's third war on drugs with the Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) setting a target for Thailand to be free of illegal drug production by the end of this year.

``As long as I am still the prime minister, I will not allow narcotic drugs to return,'' Mr Thaksin said at police headquarters on launching the three-month campaign.

The first war on drugs in 2003 resulted in the killings of over 2,500 drug suspects. Police claimed traffickers were killing each other to sever any links to themselves.

However, local and foreign human rights organisations accused the authorities of a secret campaign of summary execution of suspects, charging that many innocent people were killed on the basis of hearsay.

Mr Thaksin, however, refused to admit any failure and launched a second war in October last year. But he released no statistics this time round.

The prime minister said his third drug war will focus on major smugglers along the borders with Cambodia and Laos, the areas to which the drugs were sent from the Thai-Burmese border, and on small dealers peddling in bars and clubs.

ONCB deputy secretary-general Chartchai Sudtikom said the target would be achieved through concentrated suppression of production sources in major cities and adjacent areas.

More efforts will be focused on control measures as the ONCB has set a goal of reducing the number of addicts to 60,000 from several hundred thousand now.

The ONCB will also admit more addicts to rehabilitation programmes and control those areas deemed vulnerable to the spread of drugs, said Mr Chartchai, adding he would get tough with programme graduates who revert to drug activities.

``If we find any addict who has passed the rehabilitation programme involved in drug activities again, he or she will be put in jail, no questions asked,'' he said.

He said the big production bases are still in ethic minority areas along the Thai-Burmese border. They have evaded the authorities by hiring small-time dealers to smuggle the drugs to sell in Laos and Cambodia instead.

Prices of methamphetamines in those countries are typically lower than in Thailand, where they are sold at more than 200 baht a pill compared to only 40 baht in Laos and 60 baht in Cambodia.

Despite the increased suppression of the trade, Thailand is still attractive to many drug smugglers due to its higher retail prices although consignment sizes have now become smaller at no more than 1,000 pills at a time.

The ONCB is working closely with its Lao and Cambodian counterparts to monitor smugglers along borders, he said.

--Bangkok Post 2005-04-12

[kat]

oh great, let the killing and extortion begin

[Ijustwannateach]

Another news source also quoted the government as saying that they will be focussing on "bars and clubs in major cities." Which, as we all know, is where the photo ops may be found proving that farang are responsible for all their troubles.

I ask again: when are they going to target the majority of drug users in the locations where they use them- I.e., High School Students and Thai High School Environs...

Of course asking this question pretends that the government does not already know (and profit from) the massive drug trade. This is a just an opportunity for cleaning up on their competition.

"Steven"

[Thetyim]

Good Timing

All the shootings can be shuffled sideways to be added to the SongKran road deaths.

[Nam Kao]

Better yet, I bet all the killed drug dealers will be Muslim

[sriracha john]

The Editor of The Nation has the right take on this issue:

EDITORIAL: Grand new drug war looming

Published on April 12, 2005

This time, the government should wage a smarter campaign against pushers while winning over impressionable youths

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday launched the third phase of his war on drugs, despite having claimed “total victory” over drug barons and street pushers in two previous crackdowns that left more 2,500 dead under dubious circumstances, most of them small-time traffickers. What is the public to make of this latest anti-drug campaign? Part of the answer was provided by the premier himself, speaking to representatives of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), the Justice, Interior and Public Health Ministries and the National Police Bureau. He told them the war on drugs was an ongoing, long-term process that must be maintained in the face of the ever-evolving nature of the illicit trade.

Thaksin also acknowledged the previous phases of the war had proved hugely popular with the public. Never mind international condemnation and criticism of alleged wholesale human-rights violations by police, who adopted a shoot-to-kill policy that appeared to have the tacit approval of the PM during the first leg, February to April 2003.

In the second phase, October to December 2004, alleged extrajudicial killings by police became less pronounced, with “merely” scores losing their lives “while resisting arrest by law-enforcement officials” or “being liquidated by their peers to prevent them from leaking information to authorities”.

There are obvious reasons why Thaksin’s war on drugs is frequently cited as among his most outstanding “achievements”. The general public considers drugs one of the most serious threats to national security; parents and teachers identify drug abuse as the biggest menace to children.

Even before Thaksin came to power, the ONCB had been following in the footsteps of the US government’s tradition of grand anti-drug strategies, to be fought with an almost religious fervour.

Such an approach requires huge financial and manpower resources, which fosters an expensive drug-war industry that is fed by public fear and reinforced by its own “achievements”. Since reliable drug-trade data are lacking, every single anti-drug campaign becomes a “success”.

Thaksin took the drug war one step further, turning it into a very rewarding campaign that contributed to the dramatic rise in his popularity.

To be fair, Thaksin’s vigorous law enforcement has succeeded to a certain extent in stemming the influx of amphetamines through the porous borders with neighbouring countries that harbour drug producers or have no effective control over their territories or borders.

The government has augmented law enforcement with some big-budget public relations. These campaigns involve trotting out teenage singers and film stars as “role models”. These young and super-rich heartthrobs are deliver inane messages like, “Keep off drugs, if you want to be smart, successful, rich and sexy like us.”

No one seems to care whether such unimaginative campaigns really work. Over the years, countless numbers of these hackneyed campaigns have been churned out, but with no serious effort made to evaluate their effectiveness.

Meanwhile, the spread of drugs has continued unabated. The latest official estimates indicate that more than 3 million Thais have experimented with one drug or another. Of these, about 10 per cent, or 300,000, are active users.

To reduce demand effectively, campaigners must get in touch with the realities of the drug user’s world. Anti-drug advocates should pay heed to recent findings by US authorities that indicate campaigns that treat young people like children invariably fail. Today’s youths do not find the more common anti-drug messages very persuasive.

And it’s not difficult to guess why not. Parents, teachers and policy-makers are at a loss as to what kind of message teenagers might react positively to, because they have no idea how modern youths live.

In recent years, the government has shifted its emphasis away from controlling supply towards reducing demand, as evidenced in the introduction of rehab services. But even rehabilitated users can easily relapse into their hard-to-kick habit.

Highly publicised drug wars appear dramatic and allow politicians to score quick political points, but when large and ever-growing numbers of youths are still persuaded by drug pushers to believe that whoever uses drugs has more fun, Thailand’s anti-drug policy and strategies must be revamped. Perhaps it’s time that anti-drug advocates came up with some brand-new tricks to persuade our youth that it’s just the opposite that’s true.

[zzap]

What about authorities informing themselves first, and then the public, about the effects of various drugs and familiarize themselves with user's 'culture', too?