TOWN OF ORPHANS AND ADDICTS

'My school friends all have similar problems'

Killings have become common in the drug-plagued village of Tha Li
district in Ban Ahi village of Loei province.

On Feb 10 last year, the kamnan of tambon Ahi and two villagers were
shot dead at Loei-Tha Li intersection.

On Aug 3, a villager was gunned down in front of his
son.

On Aug 27, a couple mysteriously disappeared on their way to a local
market. The following day, a former chairman of Ahi tambon
administration organisation and two former organisation members were
shot dead in the village.

Most of the victims were found to have been involved in the drug
trade.

Ahi, a village along the Thai-Lao border, is said to be an important
transit centre for drug runners. It is also a distribution centre for
speed pills smuggled from Laos.

The drug trafficking is so profitable that many villagers have
completely abandoned their farms to engage in the drug trade, said Pol
Col Suthep Kuhavilai, the Tha Li superintendent.

"About 80% of households in the Tha Li village are now involved in the
drug trade. The use of drugs is also rampant in the village," he said.

Several police operations have been launched to suppress the the sale
and abuse of drugs, Pol Col Suthep said.

"We have tried various measures to put pressure on suspected drug
dealers, to get them to surrender to authorities. These include daily
police patrols around the houses of suspected dealers and distribution
of leaflets containing the names of villagers blacklisted for their
involvement in the trafficking of drugs.

"These measures have proved quite successful. Many dealers have turned
themselves in and some moved their operations to other areas," he said.

The number of people dealing drugs in the village had fallen from 180
to 50 as a result, he said.

Though the drug situation has shown signs of improvement in Ahi, the
village is now burdened by a population of 67 orphans whose parents
were either killed by drug gangs or in police suppression operations.

Jetsuda Wanthongsuk, a 12-year-old girl, now lives with her
grandmother. Her parents and brothers have been jailed on drug charges.

But the girl said nobody at her school looks down upon her, because so
many students are in a similar situation.

"At school, nobody shunned me after hearing about my parents," she
said.

"They understand me because their own parents or members of their
family are also drug addicts or involved in the drug trade."

She admitted feeling unsafe staying in her village, where killings are
a regularly occurrence.

A teacher said the spread of drugs in the village and the involvement
of parents in the trade was a major factor influencing drug use in
schools.

From 1995-1998, 5% of students in the local village school were found
to have used drugs.

In view of the problem, teachers, local leaders and local authorities
have intensified campaigns to arouse awareness of children about the
dangers of drug addiction.

As a direct result, the number of students addicted to drugs has
sharply dropped, she said.