'Demand for drugs must be cut'

[blundaman]

Number 1 killer is booze 4% of people globally each year.Prohibition on acohol didnt work The war on drugs hasn't worked.Legalise it,tax it,treat addicts as patients rather than criminals.Surprisingly the US. Is leading the way with Colarado and Washigton as the vanguard.The war was always lost-Lets take care of the wounded instead of filling the prisons.

Oo-f'king Ra! It's like putting prisoners in prison.

hmmm, perhaps it's better to ask oneself just who are the real criminals here... profiteer?

[elcaro]

Legalise, localise, regulate

[chrisinth]

"Ironically, the rich privileged who are sent abroad for their education have brought the Western drug culture back to, in some cases, the origin of supply" Oh good more farang bashing. Just the solution we need: blaming rather than addressing the problem. May wish to read article on decriminalizing drugs in Portugal: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

Post removed

[Jesus Malverde]

Recent campaigns in our Tambon against drug use with the younger population has been a sucess. Dissapearance or loss of urine test samples has risen in cost from last year to the current rate of 15,00Baht.

Quite a deterrent as few of the village famlies can offord this and have to "borrow" from the local Shark at 3% per month interest.

Only 3% and 15 baht? 'I call that a bargain--the best I ever seen'... Pete Townshend

Edited June 30, 2013 by Jesus Malverde

[CIHUAHUA]

In reverse order; the demand will not disappear overnight, problem already exists, cull the supply to decrease the demand (from new users) and remove the protection provided for these people to operate.

I agree.

Drug abuse is a world-wide problem that goes beyond gender, class and ethnic/cultural barriers. Norms are changing with the proliferation of technology. They are changing because now everything is in question as the world seemingly wants to homogenize. Recreational drug use in the media is so common that no one is shocked when they hear about it or see it in movies and television. I think people start using drugs to have some fun. It starts on their days off with friends and is thought of as harmless because no one starts out as an addict. After a time it can led to the inability to deal with whats real in life like family, education, a better job or position. Of course some people self-medicate not wanting to be hampered by a doctors conservative dosage, but the real problem is with those seeking a new sensation to escape from boredom. Everyone in the world would like to feel good and perhaps a day will come when a drug is manufactured that will offer a feeling of excitement and well-being without doing any harm to the individual or society in general. Till that day comes it is best to stop the availability and concentrate on a naturally obtained high even if it takes effort to get there.

[KuhnPaen]

Un-winnable "wars" are really good for business on all sides.

The police, cartels, suppliers, etc are all very happy.

Whatever you do--don't legalize, decriminalize, or god forbid--let people make their own choices.

Where's the money in that?

[Curt1591]

A very good friend of mine spent a few years in the transportation business. Many of the names of his clients were the same names you heard in Washington DC, fighting the war on drugs.

Some of the leaders, in the war on drugs, have family working the supply end.

[Cnxforever]

Law enforcement can never solve the problem. As long as people will take drugs they will find a way to traffic them.

All law enforcement does - unwillingly - is to drive up prices and criminal offences - if not coordinated with long term planning. They achieve the opposite they aim to achieve.

With more shipments intercepted prices rise. Addicts are forced to come up with more money - how do they get it? Yes you guessed right - very likely from illegal activities - burglaries, robberies, theft.

The root problem has to be attacked.

Young people with hardly any or no education at all have not much choice in this country.

The government has to come up with solutions to get them decent jobs with a decent salary. Be it through vocational schools, training programs - FOR FREE - these people can not afford to pay for education - they are hardly able to get food on the table every day!

I have personally known several young people who ended up as drug addicts as they see it as the only way out of this missery we call life - struggling from day to day to survive with no prospects of change - ever!

How can you tell a young person like this to stay a way from drugs - the drugs make them feel good for some time - make them forget for a while - and they believe they have no future anyway. A seemingly hopeless situation young people find themselves in - they need help from responsible adults to lead them out of this situation. Once they get deeper into the drug circles and once they get the feeling of "finally belonging" somewhere they do not even realize anymore that what they are doing is acctually illegal - it is very difficult to get them out then.

Thailand does also not beleive in second chances - young people caught with small amounts of drugs are imprisoned - and condemned for life. No education a criminal record - often at a very young age - what chance have they got? Nobody will ever employ them - so they turn back to where they think they "belong"

The numbers above are a joke - Thai authorities have no idea what drug problem they have - and it is growing by the day.

Law inforcement can only be a small part of it - if the root problems are not indentified and attacked it will grow out of hand very fast.

[metisdead]

A post that contains a video advocating the manufacturing and selling of drugs has been removed.

[winstonc]

dealers = death penalty

users = pay at least one month salary ?

wrong,,,if theres no dealers then there wont be users will there,,,

[seminomadic]

Thailand still has the death penalty. Get the phu yai's. Execute them.

I've asked my students on many occasions a hypothetical. If executing one man would eliminate corruption in Thailand, could you order his execution?

Almost all students - many classes unanimous - say 'no', because that's not the Buddhist way. Live with the corruption and no need to kill anyone over it.

Not the best sample.... college kids who've had a pretty pampered life.... but indicative all the same. In Thailand nobody's going to be willing to oversee such sacrifices/ham-handed example-making.

[Dap]

Lots of sarcastic comments but no solutions.

Do you have any to offer? I don't, but I'll certainly listen to yours.

[Dap]

Number 1 killer is booze 4% of people globally each year.Prohibition on acohol didnt work The war on drugs hasn't worked.Legalise it,tax it,treat addicts as patients rather than criminals.Surprisingly the US. Is leading the way with Colarado and Washigton as the vanguard.The war was always lost-Lets take care of the wounded instead of filling the prisons.

"The war was always lost-Lets take care of the wounded instead of filling the prisons." Very wise words.

[DGIE]

So where do smugglers of these drugs sell? In pharmacies and drugstores?

[kocheedogyi]

Like in the U.S. many of the “busts” are set-ups for law enforcement or giveaways to law enforcement so that it seems they are accomplishing something. For the amount of drugs “seized” it winds up - in my opinion - about 5 to 10 % of what’s being smuggled in.

Slightly off topic - I’m in favor of stopping smuggling of the drugs I don’t like! But why the hell can’t I buy the green Kemagra pill now? The Thai made version of Vitamin V is garbage. Kemagra was perfect for it’s price.

[HoudiniXLogic]

The Narcotics Control Board is also spending Bt10 million to produce an anti-drugs film entitled "Mak" (The Way), which will feature well-known local stars. The production was 80 per cent complete, Pongsapat said.

The remaining 20% would be completed as soon as possible but unfortunately the well-known local stars were at a party ripped to the tits on coke and meth.

Someone who isnt me has been to a bunch of these parties and partook in said activities with local stars, MANY of them, some of the most well known ones. Infamous Sek was not the only one. A really well known model/actress (who I will not name) gets all the yayo for her girls. A famous local hip hop group whose name is a pun on a strong metallic alloy gets a bunch of 420 from Southern Cali, with a crazy water pipe, but thats just the more "innocent" stuff....oh and lets not talk about the parties they host...and the kids that they hang out with.

I mean, Nikatina and Dead Prez would have a ton of material to rap about if they ever skimmed thai politics.

[wallcracks]

"He said that last year alone, 700,000 people had gone through rehab and returned home."

How many of them are still "clean"?

Thought the same...

[Payboy]

'Demand for drugs must be cut'

Busting the supply side might help.

Perhaps an air strike in Myanmar?

Only a general on yaba would kickstart that and hope to win.

[Jesus Malverde]

A post that contains a video advocating the manufacturing and selling of drugs has been removed.

The video did not "advocate the manufacturing and selling of drugs". Actually, much the opposite.

Obviously you didn't comprehend. Why should I expect anything more or less?

[Pi Sek]

If they started busting some Thai Mr. Bigs, it might help.

Personally I think the best way to curtail drug use is to give people something else to do.

One of the only positives I can see from this weekend's political news is the appointment of Paveena Hongsakul as Social Development Minister. The fact that most Thais (in my experience) identify her as some sort of Mother Theresa activist rather than a politician speaks volumes. She's one of very few politicians around that does a lot of work and one day I expect she'll be a senator.

It will be interesting to see what impact she can have on Thailand's ya-ba/ice (the two drugs that have serious nationwide issues at the moment) problem, as all previous governments have attacked the issue prohibitively, not socially.

[swifty5x5]

Lots of sarcastic comments but no solutions.

Legalize drugs. When they decriminalized drugs in Spain they found drug use dropped.

[jamhar]

2.9% of the population addicted

1.7% of the population went thru rehab in ONE YEAR

YIKES!

If the numbers are true (please say no )

Then we have a train wreck in the makings

In a under developed country

with insufficient LE to enforce the illicit drug demand, supply, distribution or importation sides

and a government with corruptions issues

...

This cannot end well.

[hawker9000]

Cannot understand the repeated same old tired "stop it at its source"/"get the traffickers&suppliers" mantra. That's what the US and most of the world have BEEN doing, and it's obviously not working. We've been calling that the "War on Drugs". Whatever inspirational value the name may have once had, it hasn't worked (mostly because it simply can't be done in the face of powerful demand). Not by a long shot, and not after decades of expensive, resource-intensive, liberty-curtailing, government-corrupting effort. Education of the young is of course an absolute necessity (because it gets at demand!) and shouldnt be in any way trivialized, but the "drugs should be legalized"/"drugs are the same as alcohol&tobacco" crowd only confuses, dilutes & distracts them from the correct message. (And for the most part that's deliberate.) Nobody wants to hear it, but zero tolerance (for users) is the only approach that's going to work in the long run. By all means, continue to find & prosecute the entire supply chain, and make sure they're punished quickly, harshly (the death penalty should be considered for the inner circles...) and consistently. But don't think that alone is ever going to eliminate the scourge. If you can't stop suicide bombers with nothing more to gain than promises of a great afterlife, why would you think we can stop drug trafficking when there's so much money & power involved in this life?

Edited July 30, 2013 by hawker9000

[theblether]

Pongsapat said the best way to tackle the crisis was to reduce the demand. "To solve the problem, we must emphasise reducing the demand. This will only succeed with proper campaigns; the dissemination of information and through coordination with local police and communities.".

IMHO, the "demand" for drugs is determined by "quality of life". If you want to reduce the demand, you need to figure out why people are unhappy with their lives; education about the dangers of drug abuse is going to have little impact. Why are many Thais unhappy with their lives? Gee....could it be that many work 6 days a week at menial, mind numbing jobs and have to live apart from their spouses in order to procure work? Could it be that the Thai society is one that is based on "class" structure and if you are in the lower class there is little to no possibility of escape? Could it be that there is no equality in the eyes of the law and only those with money can "afford" justice?

Just some of my thoughts.

Far too simplistic, we all know examples of well to do people who are drug users.

The only answer is legalization, not only here in Thailand but Worldwide. People are being dragged into criminality at all stratas of society and it's encouraging even more lawlessness and desperate acts.

Let the major companies produce the product at a consistent level, and let the governments take a tax cut that can be used to promote rehabilitation for those that want it.

The current situation is unsustainable, prohibition is useless.

[TomTom55]

Pretty much nothing will help in this situation, that is the bottom line. The human species throughout history has been seduced by all kinds of intoxicants ranging from psychedelic mushrooms, alcohol, opium to meth and ecstasy. The fact is that the vast majority of people like to engage in altering their state of mind from time to time either by legal or illegal means.

So on that basis there will always be a demand, thus there will always be a supply, naturally. They can bust and bust and bust until their busting balls are black and blue, somebody else will fill their shoes and take their place if there is a substantial profit to be made, it is a war they will not ever win.

The only thing they can do is to educate people on the dangers of substances and to be freaking logical about the situation, put money in the better direction rather than the pointless one. If those people who have been educated still choose to get wrapped up in substance abuse, then there should be adequate rehabilitation readily available to the public for free, yes I said it, for free. Also punishing people for lesser offenses like having a little bit of personal weed or a couple of yaba pills just crowds prisons and ruins lives.
"yes you use yaba, instead of helping the situation we will throw you in prison where you will have the ability to take more drugs, get sick, get depressed, cause your family and loved ones to be depressed because that is the best thing to do"
Actually no it isn't that is a stupid action to take. Rehabilitation and then probation should be the way forward, but changing an entire nations ideology and view point is something near impossible.

Edited July 30, 2013 by TomTom55

[TomTom55]

Pongsapat said the best way to tackle the crisis was to reduce the demand. "To solve the problem, we must emphasise reducing the demand. This will only succeed with proper campaigns; the dissemination of information and through coordination with local police and communities.".

IMHO, the "demand" for drugs is determined by "quality of life". If you want to reduce the demand, you need to figure out why people are unhappy with their lives; education about the dangers of drug abuse is going to have little impact. Why are many Thais unhappy with their lives? Gee....could it be that many work 6 days a week at menial, mind numbing jobs and have to live apart from their spouses in order to procure work? Could it be that the Thai society is one that is based on "class" structure and if you are in the lower class there is little to no possibility of escape? Could it be that there is no equality in the eyes of the law and only those with money can "afford" justice?

Just some of my thoughts.

Far too simplistic, we all know examples of well to do people who are drug users.

The only answer is legalization, not only here in Thailand but Worldwide. People are being dragged into criminality at all stratas of society and it's encouraging even more lawlessness and desperate acts.

Let the major companies produce the product at a consistent level, and let the governments take a tax cut that can be used to promote rehabilitation for those that want it.

The current situation is unsustainable, prohibition is useless.

As much as I can see why legalization makes more sense than what is going on at the moment (punishing people for minor things, crowding prisons, not really addressing the issue, creating a taxable commodity etc), I think there are still a few problems with it.

First of all, where do you draw the line? Who is to say what is right or wrong, if you legalize weed, mushrooms, and ecstasy, you will have all of the criminals who were once selling these substances moving onto selling things like heroin and meth, or maybe they will move to other crimes like fraud or whatever. Criminals are going to do crime, that is their trade and what they know, so where do you draw the line and say what is against the law to take and what isn't?

Secondly I really have a problem with a lot of tax money heading towards ANY government, I have come to see major holes in pretty much any government and I would rather let them and the state become bled dry than become richer. Do you honestly think that governments will take all or most of that tax money to help junkies with rehabilitation? Don't get me wrong, I think rehabilitation is probably the best way to address an addiction, but governments are the major mafias of this world and are corrupt to the core.

Then you come to the question that addresses the idea of what will happen to the population, will there be a huge increase in substance use just because it is legal? One main reason I refrain from using drugs in Thailand is because the punishments are so harsh that it is not worth it IMO, also because the quality is poor, but if things like mushrooms, LSD, ecstasy and weed were legal, I know I would be using them from time to time. Do we really want a place where people are potentially under the influence of such things whilst driving our public transport or doing their jobs?

Lastly like I said before, the criminals will move on to other crimes, this could be racketeering, loan sharking, fraud, kidnapping, murder for hire, you name it they will move towards it as the major players are criminals at heart and won't go and find a 9-5 job in an office somewhere.

[theblether]

All valid points, however people are already driving around under the influence, and all those other criminal activities are already highly active.

I would legalize all drugs, and free up police time to go after the other activities. ( remembering I said worldwide ).

[TomTom55]

All valid points, however people are already driving around under the influence, and all those other criminal activities are already highly active.

I would legalize all drugs, and free up police time to go after the other activities. ( remembering I said worldwide ).

Governments 'worldwide' are corrupt and the biggest criminals, just most of the Western governments do a better job of hiding it.

I know people are already under the influence and driving, but if EVERYTHING was made legal then you would have more people using drugs I would assume, thus more people under the influence driving or doing their jobs. I think it is a very very difficult problem to approach and it needs to be looked at from many different angles, it is not so black and white.

As for the criminals, if all of the drugs were legalized, then they would HAVE to move trade. Yes some of them are already involved in these crimes, but not all. Also the ones that are involved in drugs and other crimes will have lost a huge amount of income when drugs are legalized, so they are going to need to fight and do all kinds of illegal things to get back that income.

Personally I would make certain drugs legal and reduce the sentencing of having personal amounts on others, plus rehabilitation for those found with 'physically addictive drugs' such as heroin or meth. I think it is totally ridiculous that LSD and ecstasy are even in the same category as heroin and meth, that is ludicrous.

Edited July 30, 2013 by TomTom55

[patayayaya]

'Demand for drugs must be cut'

more like

'drugs must be cut for more demand'

[patayayaya]

Drugs like methamphetamine pills were waiting to be smuggled into Thailand from across a number of different border points, but authorities could not seal all these routes.

If they took their useless police off of helmet and harassment duty, they would have plenty of man power to seal the borders.

But then again, all that would do is strengthen the supply chain.

'demand for drugs must be cut' but in reality its 'drugs must be cut for demand'