THAIS FEEL NEW URGENCY TO STEM FLOW OF NARCOTICS

The Country Realises That Drug Addiction Knows No Class Barriers

In a simple blue building in the town of Bang Kla, teen age girls from
affluent Bangkok families are taken in to kick their methamphetamine habit.
They are daughters of businessmen, bankers, parliament members and senior
military officials, all casualties of what Thais call yaa baa (mad
medicine) and the western world calls speed.

Sister Rosaline Ngamwong, the diminutive nun who runs the Women's Rebirth
Centre, is still shocked at the girls coming in hooked on a drug once
mostly popular among working-class Thais, such as lorry-drivers and late
night shift workers. "These are girls from good families, high society,
good quality people - they have everything," she says.

This recognition - that drug addiction knows no class barriers - has
created a new urgency about stemming the flow of narcotics flowing in from
neighbouring Burma. Thailand is now setting up a 400-man special task force
- - including border police and the military - that will be trained by US
Special Forces troops and Drug Enforcement Administration experts.

Thailand is also considering strengthening its legal infrastructure,
including the possible adoption of a plea-bargaining law, to help
prosecutors take the testimony of drug "mules" to build legal cases against
those higher up in trafficking organisations. New money- laundering laws
which took effect earlier this year have already given prosecutors another
legal weapon.

The government is also expanding its drug treatment facilities for addicts,
hoping to curb demand.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, has also made it clear that he
intends to get tough. In a macabre spectacle on April 18, the government
executed five convicted drug dealers, including two foreigners, allowing
unprecedented broadcasts of their last hours - though not the moment of
execution - on national television.

The executions, and the intrusion of over 100 journalists during the
condemned men's final hours, prompted an outcry among human rights
activists. But Mr Thaksin defended the tactics, saying the grim images
would deter many from entering the drug trade.

"If they enjoy the profit from killing the young generation, they better be
ready to endure the consequences," Mr Thaksin said yesterday at a ceremony
to burn 2,266kg of speed, heroin and other narcotics seized by law
enforcement officials last year.

Thailand has always been seen as a co-operative partner for international
law enforcement agencies working to stem the flow of heroin from Burma to
lucrative western markets. But the spurt in domestic consumption since 1996
has created a sense that the country is under siege.

Anti-drug officials estimate around 800m methamphetamine pills will flow
into Thailand this year, up from 500m last year, and 100m in 1998.
Officials say around 2.7m of Thailand's 61m people use methamphetamines,
while around 300,000 are addicts.

"Before, drugs were looked on as somebody else's problem," said a foreign
anti-narcotics officer in Bangkok. "Now, the number one enemy in Thailand
is methamphetamines."

According to both US and Thai officials, most speed consumed in Thailand is
produced by the United Wa State Army, a once-rebellious ethnic group in
Burma, which has stopped fighting Rangoon and turned instead to money-making.

Yet Thai suggestions earlier this year that Rangoon was turning a blind
eye, or worse, tacitly encouraging drug production, infuriated Burma's
military rulers, who retorted that the chemical ingredients for
methamphetamine production usually reach Wa areas through Thailand. Rangoon
also claimed it could link 10 high-ranking Thai politicians to the drug trade.

In the past, Thailand has been unable or unwilling to go after powerful
Thais suspected of having links to the drug trade but, in the new climate,
that resistance may be eroding. In March, a senior policy analyst in the
cabinet secretariat became the highest ranking civil servant in several
years to be arrested on drugs charges, after police found 14,000
methamphetamine tablets in her house.

Mr Thaksin insists his administration will not ignore any suspected drug
trafficker, no matter what their social status. "There is no influence that
can prevent this government from enforcing the laws," he said.

It will take all the resolve that Thailand can muster to halt the influence
of its insidious enemy.