STATE TAKES NEW APPROACH TO DRUG-RELATED CRIMES

Those Suspected Of Drug Crimes Are Now To Be Sent For Rehabilitation Rather
Than To Court And A Term In Prison If Convicted.

Those all-too-common newspaper and television images of drug-crazed men
holding a child and/or woman hostage are expected to become a thing of the
past should the new Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act help reduce the number
of drug-related crimes.

The Act, which came into effect on March 3, is the first of its kind in
Thailand and, as such, it has been the subject of wide debate among
probation officers, the police and the wider community.

Many people are afraid the compulsory rehabilitation programme required
under the Act might not prove successful in helping serious drug users
overcome their addictions, and many others see other problems, particularly
to do with staffing and the return of drug users to the community. But
their voices seem to have gone unheard by Justice Minister Pongthep
Thepkanchana as he pushes ahead to bring the Act into effect.

The Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act went through its first draft when Mr
Pongthep served his first term as justice minister nearly three years ago.

The idea behind it is for drug addicts to be treated as being ill and in
need of treatment. They will have the opportunity to receive rehabilitation
or be brought before the courts if any crime has been committed.

The aim is to reduce the overcrowding of Thai prisons, which now house as
many as 250,000 convicts, most of whom were convicted on drug-related
charges, and to break the dependence of drug users on drug dealers.

The Act places the responsibility for the programme jointly on the Justice,
Education, Interior and Public Health ministries, the armed forces, the
police, community groups and non-governmental organisations. They will be
encouraged to cooperate more closely in support of the programme.

"Unity and cooperation among state agencies look to be the biggest
challenge [to the success of the programme]," said Siroj Dulalumpha, head
of the Drug Addict Rehabilitation Centre in Pathum Thani's Lat Lum Kaeo
district.

Mr Siroj said the government would need time to inform all the state
officers involved of their responsibilities under the Act. He said there
were also sure to be conflicting opinions and the different agencies would
probably have their own way of going about things.

"The Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act is a new innovation," he said. "It is
not surprising that it is so widely criticised. But looking on the bright
side, the rehabilitation system will improve things in the near future."

Pol Lt-Gen Achirawit Suphannaphesat, commissioner of the 4th Regional
Police Bureau covering the upper Northeast, said the idea behind the Act
was something new to police, especially non-commissioned officers, and it
would take time to inform them of its intricacies.

The commissioner said he was already providing training on all aspects of
the Act so his officers could do their best as they would continue to
arrest those suspected of drug-related crimes before they would be handed
on to the rehabilitation process.

"Apart from an understanding of what is involved, the police face the
problem of a shortage of funds," he said. "We have to spend a lot taking
the many drug suspects to court each day as the government has never
allocated us with a special budget."

The Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act takes effect initially in 36 provinces.
A further 34 provinces will be added in June, and the final six a month later.

The Justice Ministry expects 80,000 of the country's 300,000 estimated drug
addicts, based on figures supplied by the Office of the Narcotics Control
Board, to pass through the rehabilitation programme this year. Once they
have completed the programme, they will be returned to society under the
supervision of probation officers and volunteers.

The Act requires the police to send all drug suspects aged over 18 years to
court for an initial hearing within 48 hours of their arrest and all drug
suspects under 18 years to court within 24 hours.

The police can ask the court at this initial hearing to grant the continued
detention for a further 15 days of anyone suspected of taking drugs, taking
and possessing drugs, taking, possessing and selling drugs, or taking and
selling drugs.

The court can refuse the police request and try the suspect on the spot or
it can forward the case to a provincial committee made up of a state
prosecutor, doctor, psychologist, social welfare officer, probation officer
and an "honourable" person to decide whether the suspect has a drug
addiction or not.

The committee must reach its decision within 15 days of the suspect's
arrest, although this can be extended by a further 30 days if the committee
cannot reach a conclusion. Anyone classified a drug addict will have to
undergo rehabilitation.

The Act separates those who will undergo the rehabilitation programme into
two categories.

Suspects adjudged to have a serious drug addiction will be sent for
rehabilitation at one of 34 military camps or the Probation Department's
drug addict rehabilitation centre in Pathum Thani.

Those not so dependent on drugs will be sent for rehabilitation at a
hospital or health office or returned to their home community or a temple.
These people need not stay at their place of rehabilitation for the
duration of the programme and may be allowed to stay at home if they appear
trustworthy enough to report themselves for rehabilitation and to state
officers.

The rehabilitation period has been set at six months but could be extended
to a maximum of three years. Anyone who fails to satisfy those in charge of
the programme will be prosecuted without exception.

The provincial committee will not send drug users who have shown they have
beaten their addictions for prosecution. They will be cleared of all drug
charges and will not have a drug-related police record.

A senior official at Chiang Mai Probation Office who asked not to be named
said she was very worried about the added workload that will be placed on
staff who are required to look after the inmates of rehabilitation centres
and monitor their behaviour while they are under probation once the
rehabilitation programme is completed.

She also doubted whether the government would open more rehabilitation
centres even though the existing facilities were hardly likely to cope with
the increased number of "serious drug addicts".

Chiang Mai is one of the 36 provinces where the programme has already taken
effect.

She said her office was having trouble watching over drug addicts and she
did not think the two existing rehabilitation centres had enough beds to
cope with the increased number of inmates. A military camp in Mae Rim
district has set aside 330 beds for male addicts and there are 80 beds for
females at an air force base in Muang district.

The official said her office would also be asked to look after drug addicts
tried by the provincial committees in nearby Lamphun, Lampang and Mae Hong
Son, and this required urgent government action to avert the potential for
major problems.

Although the Probation Department has been granted approval to recruit 699
temporary staff to add to its 1,200 permanent officers engaged in the
rehabilitation programme, there was no guarantee that this would be enough.
In fact, she said, 19,000 more probation volunteers needed to be recruited
to help run the programme.

Chaweng Inthawong, a probation volunteer at the Nom Klao community in
Bangkok's Wang Thong Lang district, said the government had not done enough
to explain the implications of the Act to the public.

He said his community, which is said to have serious drug problems, needed
further information about the Act so the residents understood its
intentions and were able to sympathise more with drug addicts being
rehabilitated under the programme.

Some drug users adjudged as not having a serious addiction will undergo
rehabilitation in their home communities under the close supervision of
probation officers and volunteers.

The Probation Department recently launched a 10-million-baht campaign in
communities where rehabilitation will take place to try to change people's
poor opinion of drug dependents.

"The communities and families of drug addicts should give them moral
support and stand by them," said Kittiphong Kitayarak, director-general of
the Probation Department. "They should try to understand them, give them a
chance and find them jobs. They will become good people who return to do
useful things for society."