Need for speed: Thai cops seized 90 million amphetamine pills this year

[webfact]

Need for speed: Thai cops seized 90 million amphetamine pills this year
By Coconuts Bangkok


File photo of seized drugs. Photo: Reuters

BANGKOK: -- Thailand has seized more than 90 million speed pills and more than a metric ton of crystal meth this year.

The Office of the Narcotics Control Board said it had also admitted 120,000 drug addicts for rehab.

Scretary-general Narong Rattananukul said 1,700 rai of land in Thailand was being used to plant opium, although most illegal drugs are smuggled in from neighboring countries.

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/12/18/need-speed-thai-cops-seized-90-million-amphetamine-pills-year


-- Coconuts Bangkok 2015-12-18

[ParadiseLost]

Is this opium crop official? The way it is announced seems to be a little matter-of-fact rather than a big revelation...

As opium is not used in the manufacture of the 'problem' drugs in Thailand, do we assume this is for the 'export market' - who enables this?

[clockman]

Follow the money, the money that is laundered here. Somebody big is the banker. The untouchables?

[cockatoowho]

How much of it disappeared from the lock up?

[arrowsdawdle]

More doublespeak no doubt. Seized probably translates from the Thai word for 'handed over.'

[Colabamumbai]

Bring back the opium and the Heroin, less problems, the speed is mainly used by Thais, The heroin gets exported, some old Thais still smoke opium, the younger generation who uses speed would not use the opium "fin" nor the heroin.

20 years ago you could buy "Red Horse" speed legally in most shops, same as no doze for distance drivers.

[gemguy]

Is this opium crop official? The way it is announced seems to be a little matter-of-fact rather than a big revelation...

As opium is not used in the manufacture of the 'problem' drugs in Thailand, do we assume this is for the 'export market' - who enables this?

Here is the answer to your questions

https://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Golden_triangle_2006.pdf

The array of amphetamines and methamphetamines is the new highly profitable and most lucrative forms of recreational drugs being manufactured and supplied from inside Thailand and or smuggled into Thailand.

Easier to manufacture under cover and illegally of course while also easier to conceal and transport while the manufacturing costs verses the sales prices make for a very attractive, highly profitable drug trafficking venture more so than opium and heroin trafficking.

The supply chain logistics of the base chemicals and precursor chemicals and everything entailed are far more abundant and readily available as compared to all the logistics involved in opium cultivation and or heroin manufacturing and a notable factor in the further decrease of opium cultivation in the golden triangle area ( Burma , Laos and Thailand ) once known as the source of the worlds highest grade heroin.

A must read is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia

Cheers

[IamNoone88]

I am always curious as to what happens to these huge drug fines. Big headlines and then silence. Where corruption and high value assets converge ........ I wonder if the drugs are actually fully audited and destroyed or some find their way back into the system............

[Lupatria]

90 million speed pills and more than a metric ton of crystal meth seized from the supply chain-

…and I was wondering why most of the Thai work in slow motion these days.

[ParadiseLost]

Is this opium crop official? The way it is announced seems to be a little matter-of-fact rather than a big revelation...

As opium is not used in the manufacture of the 'problem' drugs in Thailand, do we assume this is for the 'export market' - who enables this?

Here is the answer to your questions

https://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Golden_triangle_2006.pdf

The array of amphetamines and methamphetamines is the new highly profitable and most lucrative forms of recreational drugs being manufactured and supplied from inside Thailand and or smuggled into Thailand.

Easier to manufacture under cover and illegally of course while also easier to conceal and transport while the manufacturing costs verses the sales prices make for a very attractive, highly profitable drug trafficking venture more so than opium and heroin trafficking.

The supply chain logistics of the base chemicals and precursor chemicals and everything entailed are far more abundant and readily available as compared to all the logistics involved in opium cultivation and or heroin manufacturing and a notable factor in the further decrease of opium cultivation in the golden triangle area ( Burma , Laos and Thailand ) once known as the source of the worlds highest grade heroin.

A must read is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia

Cheers

There is a shocking report on BBC today, the number of overdose deaths in the US hit a record high in 2014 - 47,000 mostly prescription tabs or heroin.

So much for the war on drugs...

[gemguy]

Bring back the opium and the Heroin, less problems, the speed is mainly used by Thais, The heroin gets exported, some old Thais still smoke opium, the younger generation who uses speed would not use the opium "fin" nor the heroin.

20 years ago you could buy "Red Horse" speed legally in most shops, same as no doze for distance drivers.

Not as you imply.

20 t0 30 year ago and many years further into the past Thailand also had a notable amount of opium addicts and later on heroin addicts as those particular forms of recreational drugs were readily available and abundant in the region.

Although the bulk of the heroin was exported ( smuggled ) out of Thailand for international distribution there were plenty of opium and heroin addicts in Thailand while the numbers were very concerning for the authorities charged with trying to curb the problem.

The 1960's and 1970's in particular and into the 1980's

Unfortunately, while some sectors of the Thai government and the police and the military were trying their best to curb the cultivation of opium and or any opium refining ( Heroin manufacturing ) in Thailand and or the smuggling of opium and or heroin from the Burmese side of the border there existed many Thai officials and military officials and police officials and local "Thai entrepreneurs" who were intricately complicit in opium trading and heroin manufacturing and or heroin trafficking while effectively thwarting the efforts of the various official government entities trying to curb the flow of the drugs smuggled into Thailand and or being trafficked throughout Thailand.

Now that opium and heroin is less accessible than before, while the supply chain logistics are not as they used to be, opium and heroin addiction in Thailand is not nearly as large a problem as it was before while Thailand has very little opium production any longer while the opium cultivation production numbers in the golden triangle area have dropped significantly in the last 20 years to present.

Meantime, the opium and or heroin, once available in relative abundance, has been replaced by illicit amphetamine and methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution and proving to be just as much a problem and even more so in various aspects of everything entailed.

[gemguy]

Is this opium crop official? The way it is announced seems to be a little matter-of-fact rather than a big revelation...

As opium is not used in the manufacture of the 'problem' drugs in Thailand, do we assume this is for the 'export market' - who enables this?

Here is the answer to your questions

https://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Golden_triangle_2006.pdf

The array of amphetamines and methamphetamines is the new highly profitable and most lucrative forms of recreational drugs being manufactured and supplied from inside Thailand and or smuggled into Thailand.

Easier to manufacture under cover and illegally of course while also easier to conceal and transport while the manufacturing costs verses the sales prices make for a very attractive, highly profitable drug trafficking venture more so than opium and heroin trafficking.

The supply chain logistics of the base chemicals and precursor chemicals and everything entailed are far more abundant and readily available as compared to all the logistics involved in opium cultivation and or heroin manufacturing and a notable factor in the further decrease of opium cultivation in the golden triangle area ( Burma , Laos and Thailand ) once known as the source of the worlds highest grade heroin.

A must read is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia

Cheers

There is a shocking report on BBC today, the number of overdose deaths in the US hit a record high in 2014 - 47,000 mostly prescription tabs or heroin.

So much for the war on drugs...

Yes indeed ...those are nasty statistics while the recreational drug addiction rates are not going to go down rather increase all the more.

A person really has to wonder if the recreational drugs were to be legalized and the users were not to be criminalized for partaking in the use of recreational purpose drugs would there be less addiction as compared to now and presently under prohibition and the enforcement of prohibition.

Edited December 19, 2015 by gemguy

[farcanell]

Damn!

[Nobb]

Great job in detecting these pills. But i still have to wonder why a Bankok Police Chief carried a gun and bullets on a plain when you can detect these little pills. That is why you rank so low in Air Safety. Pollitics and who you pay can get you out of anything when you are connected in Thailand. Keeping drugs off planes is great but letting guns and bullet on planes is not good for passenger safety or Thailand reputation!

[Ace of Pop]

That's why the Cops seem more active this year.How many that take a day

[dhream]

The mathematics speaks for itself. If government's were obliged to run countries like a business, instead of pissing treasure up against a wall 'fighting' this and that moral outrage, then based all drugs on a health risk scale like tobacco and alcohol, then dropped the invented reefer madness panic about drug epidemics that never eventuate despite them being clearly unable to stop the trade growing, much less stop the trade entirely, their drug problems would be solved in a year.

[dhream]

The mathematics speaks for itself. If government's were obliged to run countries like a business, instead of pissing treasure up against a wall 'fighting' this and that moral outrage, then based all drugs on a health risk scale like tobacco and alcohol, then dropped the invented reefer madness panic about drug epidemics that never eventuate despite them being clearly unable to stop the trade growing, much less stop the trade entirely, their drug problems would be solved in a year.

[dhream]

Gemguy, this post is not an attack on you, but a lot of your commentary, indeed the media, is based on the'fear and loathing' factor inculcated unto drug 'abuse' since the 1930s.

Before that, everything was available over the counter, and had been for centuries. Queen Vic was a junkie, and her Empire fought a war with China over her drug of choice.

There never has been a cause for legitimate concern. It was like the Red menace, a bogeyman based on an element of truth. Used to exert geopolitical influence and control.

From there, the 'war' not the actual drugs, which were once available to all, remember, have enriched many, killed plenty, and falsely frightened and indoctrinated even more.

this cunning plan of course has bit them on the arse with the rise of synthetics like meth to replace and even outdo cocaine (sexy models on it stay thin and bang like a barn door in a gale, and they don't want kids to know that, but the kids do!) Ho you fight That?

[dhream]

Portugals 15 year drug experiment has been more successful than the default of prohibition. Source:Washington post.

In addition, the feared uptake of new users never materialized.

HIV is down, that means everybody is safer, drug user or not.

Overdose deaths just 3 per 1000 rest of prohibition EU 17.2 deaths per 1000

Why do the rest of the world continue down this lose-lose Path?

Because it's a backroom boys millionaires club started by the cia right here in the golden triangle.