THAI VILLAGE FIGHTS DRUGS WITH TRADITION

BAN PANG LAO, Thailand - This rice-farming village in the hills of
northern Thailand was being destroyed by drugs.

Children stole from family rice stores to buy methamphetamine -- the
preferred drug of most Thai addicts -- and outsiders drove into town all
night long to buy the little orange pills from the few dozen villagers
who had taken up drug dealing full-time.

Then, backed by angry residents and relatives, village elders threatened
the drug dealers and users with a terrifying fate for a Thai: If they
died, no one would attend their funerals and no monk would say prayers
for their souls.

The dealers and users soon went clean, and no one suffered ostracism.
"The thing villagers fear most is dying and not having anyone help with
their cremation," said Sumalee Wanarat, a former teacher who now works
with Ban Pang Lao's antidrug program.

Thai Buddhists believe the soul will be consigned to hell if funeral
rites are not performed properly.

A well-attended funeral -- usually an elaborate affair of relatives and
musicians -- is one of the main requirements of a proper cremation. "We
set up village rules and told them that if they were involved with
drugs, we would cut them off from the community completely," Mr.
Sumalee said. The last of the 53 known drug dealers in the village of
1,500 people gave up the trade within months.

Addicts were weaned from the habit. "We have to depend on ourselves
because we suffer the consequences, not the outsiders," Mr. Sumalee
said. Ban Pang Lao's success is being held up as a model for Thais to
come up with indigenous -- and perhaps ingenious -- ways to combat the
country's drug epidemic.

Government officials brought foreign journalists to the village to
show off its achievement. Previously, Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra's administration had focused on a bloody campaign to wipe
out drug dealers, giving police wide latitude to arrest suspects and
freedom to shoot those who resisted. Thailand's drug problem can be
traced to neighboring Burma, where drug lords, dominated by the United
Wa State Army, operate openly in border areas. Granted virtual
autonomy in a peace deal with the military regime in Rangoon, the Wa
produce millions of methamphetamine pills in factories close to the
Thai border.

The drugs are smuggled by jungle trails into Thailand. Last year, Thai
police seized a record 95.4 million methamphetamine tablets, according
to the Office of the Narcotics Control Bureau. The Public Health
Ministry estimates 3 million of Thailand's 63 million people regularly
abuse drugs. In big cities -- including the capital, Bangkok, 420 miles
south of Ban Pang Lao -- drug dealers blend in with street urchins and
vendors.

But in villages, there are no secrets. "We could point to each house
where the dealers and addicts lived," Mr. Sumalee said. Rice farmer
Supat Vintavud was the first person to bring methamphetamine, known in
Thailand as "ya ba" or "crazy drug," to the village in 1997. Mr.
Supat, 35, said the hill tribesmen he worked with on odd jobs
introduced him to "ya ba" to give him the strength and endurance to
drag large sacks full of ginger. "But I kept needing more, and if I
didn't take it, I was weak, tired and grumpy," said Mr. Supat, who
works now as a community antidrug worker. For four years, he sold and
used drugs.

He could sell 200 pills a day and earn 10,000 baht (U.S.$250), a hefty
sum in an area where most farmers make 4,000 baht to 8,000 baht a
month. Others soon took up the trade, and drug use spread in the
village, fueling petty theft to pay for the pills.

Young users took from their family rice stocks, and objects
disappeared from the village temple and school, Mr. Sumalee said. The
community woke up to the seriousness of its problem after two
villagers were slain by rival dealers from another province and a
10-year-old was found using and delivering "ya ba" to buyers. Turning
the dealers in to police would have solved nothing, Mr. Sumalee said,
because they would be set free after paying bribes and would mock the
elders. "I was arrested as I was about to give up dealing," said
Narong Supanyo, a farmer who went from weighing 216 pounds to 140
pounds because of his addiction. "I had just sold my last two pills,
when 10 or so police drove up the road." He said that if he had paid a
3,000 baht bribe, the officers would have let him go immediately, but
he had only 2,000 baht. Mr. Narong said he spent 48 days in jail and
still had to pay police 6,500 baht to be free.