THAILAND: DRUG SITUATION 'AS SEVERE AS SIX YEARS AGO'

Chiang Rai - The amount of drugs being smuggled across the northern
border has increased because of weak cooperation between the various
drug suppression agencies, Wattanachai Chaimuanwong, security adviser
to the prime minister, said yesterday.

He had received complaints from parents that drugs, especially speed
pills, had begun turning up again in big cities, including Bangkok.
They were also given to teenagers in the far South to lure them into
joining the insurgency.

Gen Wattanachai believed the resurgence in drug trafficking was the
result of a lack of systematic cooperation between police, soldiers
and officials of drug suppression agencies.

"They've worked separately," he said. "This makes the current
situation as severe as it was six or eight years ago."

He would raise the issue with Prime Minister Surayud
Chulanont.

Almost all the smugglers bringing drugs from Burma, Laos and Cambodia
had help from men in uniform, he added.

Drug producers, mainly ethnic minorities in Burma, have built scores
of factories along the border and sell the drugs for money to buy weapons.

Gen Wattanachai yesterday met Chiang Rai governor Amornphan Nimanand
to discuss efforts to crack down on trafficking in the province.

Provincial police said 137 traffickers were arrested and 1.4 million
speed pills were seized in raids in October 2006 and August 2007.

Soldiers have also arrested 272 traffickers since early this
year.

However, Gen Wattanachai said smugglers tend to work in small groups,
handling only small amounts of drugs. That made it easier for them to
avoid detection and arrest, he said.

Police said five members of a major drug gang and three addicts have
been arrested with crystal amphetamine, known as "ice," with a face
value of 30 million baht in their possession.

Police and soldiers searched Pha Baesae, 23, a Muser tribesman, on Mae
Sai-Chiang Rai road in Mae Sai district and found eight packs of
crystal methamphetamine on him.

According to police, Mr Pha said he was hired by two dealers to buy
the methamphetamine from an agent on the Burmese border, opposite Mae
Sai district. He had been given 650,000 baht to buy the drugs, which
were destined for a customer in downtown Chiang Rai.

His confession led to the arrest of Anucha Pattharasutthikul, 24, and
a woman identified only as Soyu, 27.

Police expanded their investigation and arrested two other suspects,
identified as Virat Thaiphet, 36, and Ekkarin Kanthakas, 21, and three
drug users.

In Buri Ram, police yesterday arrested four men for smuggling 983
methamphetamine pills from Cambodia.

In Songkhla's Saba Yoi district, police raided a house belonging to
Tohiroh Tuanmong after being told that she had krathom (Mitragyna
speciosa) leaves, which have a stimulant effect when chewed. They
seized 47.5 kilogrammes of krathom leaves in the raid.

More krathom leaves were found in another house in the same district,
where insurgents gathered to take drugs before launching attacks in
the area, police said.