THAI VILLAGE FLUSHES OUT METH PLAGUE

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 drug of
choice for most Thai addicts -- and outsiders drove into town all night long
to buy the little orange pills from a few dozen villagers who had taken up
drug dealing full-time.

Then, backed up 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," said Sumalee.

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," Sumalee said.

Ban Pang Lao's success is being touted as a model for Thais to come up with
indigenous -- and perhaps ingenious -- ways to combat the country's drug
epidemic, and 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 Myanmar, where drug
lords, dominated by the former rebel United Wa State Army, operate with
impunity in border areas.

Granted virtual autonomy by Myanmar's military regime under a peace deal,
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