THAI PM THAKSIN DECLARES WAR ON DRUGS

CHIANG RAI, Thailand, March 10 (AFP) - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra declared a "war on drugs" at a meeting of top security officials
Saturday at this northern town on the edge of the fabled Golden Triangle.

"The drugs problem is severe, which is why we have to declare war on it. We
cannot just work from day to day, we have to find a common strategy," he
said in an opening address to some 80 senior ministers and officials.

As the two-day brainstorming session began, Thaksin likened himself to the
"conductor of an orchestra, trying to find harmony in the fight against
drugs so we can win the war for the people of our nation."

The meeting in the strategic northernmost border province with Myanmar is
being held under tight security, after Saturday's bomb attack on a Thai
Airways jetliner Thaksin and his son were due to board.

The hotel venue was crawling with police officers and dog handlers and
reporters covering the talks were closely screened. Thaksin, travelling
with a large security entourage, flew into Chiang Rai on an air force jet.

The premier highlighted the seriousness of the drugs crisis, which is
estimated to afflict six percent of Thailand's population of 62 million,
and vowed to tighten laws against trafficking.

"At the moment the penalties are not very severe so traffickers are likely
to take risks," he said.

Top narcotics officials told AFP that the selection of Chiang Rai as a
venue for the talks would have a psychological impact on Myanmar which Thai
authorities accuse of harbouring the drug manufacturers who send an
estimated 600 million amphetamine pills across the border every years.

General Thamarak Issarangkun Na Ayutthaya, the minister who oversees the
Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), said the meeting will come up
with master plan to close down the drugs trade.

He said Thai officials would use the same sort of coordinated political
strategy that they used to fight the advance of communism in the early 1980s.

Thamarak said the government will declare target areas where its efforts
will be focused, and plans to give the military more powers to help it
combat traffickers.

"We also want to speed up the execution process for convicted drug
traffickers," he said.

Successive Thai governments have become increasingly alarmed by the
worsening problem of drug addiction, which has extended its tentacles into
the nation's villages and schools.

Nationwide, an estimated 12.4 percent of Thailand's 5.4 million students
are battling drug addiction.