Drug Trafficking Via Suvarnabhumi Airport Still Flourishing

[webfact]

Drug trade still flourishing: ONCB

By The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Heroin has been smuggled in via the Suvarnabhumi Airport several times, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) said yesterday.

"Most of these smugglers are Pakistanis, who swallow the illicit drug in a bid to avoid detection," ONCB secretary-general Pol General Krissana Phon-anan revealed yesterday. He was speaking on the overall situation of drug trafficking in 2009.

According to him, ONCB had dealt with 76 drug cases last year and arrested 124 suspects. The hauls included 7.35 kilograms of heroin, 3.68 million methamphetamine tablets, 2.64 tonnes of marijuana, 5.4kg of ice, 21.3kg of opium and 1.58 million pseudoephedrine tablets.

Ice, Krissana said, was smuggled mainly via Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Suvarnabhumi Airport and the Aranyaprathet Immigration Checkpoint in Sa Kaew. Krissana said the flow of other illicit drugs came mostly from Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Amnat Charoen and Nong Khai.

According to the Public Health Ministry, 11,647 drug abusers had stepped forward to seek treatment between November 12 last year and February 5 this year. Most of them are youths aged between 15 and 19.

-- The Nation 2010-02-25

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[gotlost]

I wonder if Swampy can at least make the top ten airports to smuggle drugs ?

[neverdie]

Fools......anyone that does this deserves to be caught and feel the full weight of the thai law.... OR executed.

[alex_aka_P]

Drug trade still flourishing

Lets install more and more and more security scanners!!!

[SoCa9346]

Well they certainly surpassed the amount of Ice seizures by a huge amount already just a few weeks into this year.

[chantorn]

Don't worry. GT200 and ALPHA-6 can stop the problem.

[gtm2k]

Drug trade still flourishing

Lets install more and more and more security scanners!!!

more gt200s perhaps

imagine..."hey..its pointing at that mans belly..."

[gemini81]

Fools......anyone that does this deserves to be caught and feel the full weight of the thai law.... OR executed.

executed for that? you'd be singing a different tune if it was your family member and a non violent crime

[tonglen]

Fools......anyone that does this deserves to be caught and feel the full weight of the thai law.... OR executed.

executed for that? you'd be singing a different tune if it was your family member and a non violent crime

At a glance, drug trafficking is a non-violent crime. A VERY quick glance, that is.

However, it is one of the MOST violent crimes in the world. The lives that were lost just to get ANY drug to market is staggering. Drug possession and distribution IS violent. Does anyone think these drugs arent saturated with blood? Getting 100 kilos through to retail isnt like shipping a bale of cotton or a load of rice. Or, maybe it is just that easy, albeit with the loss of many lives.

When you speak of true cost, you are also speaking of the cost beyond the homes of drug users. Some users buy the drugs through criminal activities like prostitution, gambling, robbery and murder. (Sounds like Pattaya, ahem ) You are also speaking of kidnapping, terrorism, degradation of the environment, and other problems particularly in countries like Columbia. Putting it simply, distribution not only destroys your life: it also destroys somebody else’s lives.

[neverdie]

Fools......anyone that does this deserves to be caught and feel the full weight of the thai law.... OR executed.

executed for that? you'd be singing a different tune if it was your family member and a non violent crime

You obviously don't understand my stance on this & let me point it out to you, I couldnt give a dam_n if it was a family member, I'd even pull the hatch myself if thats what it took.

After dealing with druggies, junkies and all that stuff for all of my working life, I say, execute all of the bastards. SIMPLE.

Well said tonglen!

[eldar1]

At a glance, drug trafficking is a non-violent crime. A VERY quick glance, that is.

However, it is one of the MOST violent crimes in the world. The lives that were lost just to get ANY drug to market is staggering. Drug possession and distribution IS violent. Does anyone think these drugs arent saturated with blood? Getting 100 kilos through to retail isnt like shipping a bale of cotton or a load of rice. Or, maybe it is just that easy, albeit with the loss of many lives.

When you speak of true cost, you are also speaking of the cost beyond the homes of drug users. Some users buy the drugs through criminal activities like prostitution, gambling, robbery and murder. (Sounds like Pattaya, ahem ) You are also speaking of kidnapping, terrorism, degradation of the environment, and other problems particularly in countries like Columbia. Putting it simply, distribution not only destroys your life: it also destroys somebody else's lives.

You'll actually find that gang violence is a function of drug prohibition and not the actual drugs, take away the criminal gangs endless pot of gold and there will be no reason for all the violence. i know it's easy to blame it on the drugs but unfortunately it's just not true. Open and easy to get drugs like alcohol and tobacco don't have this violence attached to them yet they are of equal potential to do harm to the individual and their illegal counter parts.

While i'm not suggesting that drug related violence will completely stop, because let's face it there are a whole bunch of people out there that have very violent tendencies and drugs especially (alcohol in my own personal experience) enhance these innate tendencies, at least the violence associated with the production and distribution will stop.

I'm just happy that slowly but surely there are more and more reasonable and sane people in the western governments looking into drug policy reform, so hopefully at some point in time we can stop the bloodshed and truely try to minimize the harm that drugs can cause to a society.

[tonglen]

At a glance, drug trafficking is a non-violent crime. A VERY quick glance, that is.

However, it is one of the MOST violent crimes in the world. The lives that were lost just to get ANY drug to market is staggering. Drug possession and distribution IS violent. Does anyone think these drugs arent saturated with blood? Getting 100 kilos through to retail isnt like shipping a bale of cotton or a load of rice. Or, maybe it is just that easy, albeit with the loss of many lives.

When you speak of true cost, you are also speaking of the cost beyond the homes of drug users. Some users buy the drugs through criminal activities like prostitution, gambling, robbery and murder. (Sounds like Pattaya, ahem ) You are also speaking of kidnapping, terrorism, degradation of the environment, and other problems particularly in countries like Columbia. Putting it simply, distribution not only destroys your life: it also destroys somebody else's lives.

You'll actually find that gang violence is a function of drug prohibition and not the actual drugs, take away the criminal gangs endless pot of gold and there will be no reason for all the violence. i know it's easy to blame it on the drugs but unfortunately it's just not true. Open and easy to get drugs like alcohol and tobacco don't have this violence attached to them yet they are of equal potential to do harm to the individual and their illegal counter parts.

While i'm not suggesting that drug related violence will completely stop, because let's face it there are a whole bunch of people out there that have very violent tendencies and drugs especially (alcohol in my own personal experience) enhance these innate tendencies, at least the violence associated with the production and distribution will stop.

I'm just happy that slowly but surely there are more and more reasonable and sane people in the western governments looking into drug policy reform, so hopefully at some point in time we can stop the bloodshed and truely try to minimize the harm that drugs can cause to a society.

Agreed, that in areas where certain drugs have been regulated and taxed, it has contributed to decreased violence. California and Colorado (and many other states) have either legalized the medical use of marijuana OR have de-criminalized it to the point of legal use.

However, I was not commenting on the legalization of drugs which is a rather hairy topic, rather the dangers of the existing status quo.

Also, I believe that marijuana is NOT the "stepping stone" or "gateway drug" that some claim. That position has been monopolized by TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL. I know of noone that did not try alcohol and tobacco before marijuana and other drugs, including me. Tobacco and alcohol kill far more people than do all other drugs combined. And theyre available at the 7-11.

Add to those deaths the ones that die every year from the big pharmaceutical companies......but I digress.

Your point was well taken though.

[Spee]

Add to those deaths the ones that die every year from the big pharmaceutical companies......but I digress.

From airport smuggling to a baseless attack on big pharma .... more like a transgression than a digression.

No moral high ground with smugglers ... big risks for small rewards by and large. It's unfortunate that such impoverished people are made to feel so desperate that they have to resort to such high risk behavior for a few dollars. But no sympathy either. Get caught or have a balloon burst in the belly, either way it will be penalty enough.

My only concern is that people are doing a lot of smuggling through Suv because it's easy to get out of their country of origin with the stuff in the first place, and the chances must be pretty good of getting through Suv. If people can get illegal narcotics moved around, what does that say about anything else?

[Kilgore Trout]

Fools......anyone that does this deserves to be caught and feel the full weight of the thai law.... OR executed.

executed for that? you'd be singing a different tune if it was your family member and a non violent crime

You obviously don't understand my stance on this & let me point it out to you, I couldnt give a dam_n if it was a family member, I'd even pull the hatch myself if thats what it took.

After dealing with druggies, junkies and all that stuff for all of my working life, I say, execute all of the bastards. SIMPLE.

Well said tonglen!

You got it right on the money! I would like to extend that to include ANYONE who participates in human trafficking and go on to say that people who frequent bars or massage parlors with connections to these crimes should also be executed. (If you can't tell I am being sarcastic to show you how idiotic your post is; things are not that black and white)

[senshusband]

In the article it only said "5.4 Kilos of Ice". Thats not much compared to 2.64 tons of pot. Thats a lot of pot in a suitcase.

[Johpa]

After dealing with druggies, junkies and all that stuff for all of my working life, I say, execute all of the bastards. SIMPLE.

Well said tonglen!

Except that the hapless couriers (mules) usually caught at the airport are most often just poor ignorant folks trying to support their families or people who have been blackmailed into working as couriers. The top folks and their bankers are never touched and getting out the pom poms and shouting "off with their heads" only deflects notice to the real perpetrators of these crimes.

From airport smuggling to a baseless attack on big pharma .... more like a transgression than a digression.

Not a baseless attack. Big Pharma sells at an incredibly cheap price heroin in a pill form in products like oxycontin. But instead of calling such drugs opiates they are euphemistically called "pain killers" as it is much more socially acceptable to become addicted to a euphemism than to an opiate. But having had a fling with opiates in my youth and then decades later having been prescribed some of these "pain killers" for a kidney stone, I do not see much difference in either the pharmacological effects nor the detrimental social effects between the illegal opiates and the legal pain killers.

[tonglen]

Add to those deaths the ones that die every year from the big pharmaceutical companies......but I digress.

From airport smuggling to a baseless attack on big pharma .... more like a transgression than a digression.

No moral high ground with smugglers ... big risks for small rewards by and large. It's unfortunate that such impoverished people are made to feel so desperate that they have to resort to such high risk behavior for a few dollars. But no sympathy either. Get caught or have a balloon burst in the belly, either way it will be penalty enough.

My only concern is that people are doing a lot of smuggling through Suv because it's easy to get out of their country of origin with the stuff in the first place, and the chances must be pretty good of getting through Suv. If people can get illegal narcotics moved around, what does that say about anything else?

Oh, yes, youre right. Big Pharma has not EVER been guilty of either the over prescribing or the manufacture of damaging, deadly drugs, no never. We can ALL trust the governments. They would NEVER take bribes from large, multinational corporations.

Do you sense the sarcasm of my post? Good, it's dripping with it.

A perusal at the two links below will show you the US gov't has recalled some of the every drugs that they themselves have "approved". Oops!

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/default.htm

And another website has a list of drugs, quite extensive, and it only covers one year. There have been hundreads of recalls over the years.

http://www.myoptumhealth.com/portal/DrugGu...alls+and+Alerts

Im not saying these corporations havent helped and saved thousands, millions of lives. They have. They have also ended many lives. That you cannot argue, my friend.

[tw25rw]

Fools......anyone that does this deserves to be caught and feel the full weight of the thai law.... OR executed.

If execution isn't the full weight of Thai law, I hate to think what is..!