DEATHS RISE IN THAILAND'S ANTI-DRUG WAR

BANGKOK - Speed has never fit the postcard image of laid-back tropical
Thailand. But since the economy accelerated into a higher gear over a decade
ago, workers have increasingly sought stimulants to keep them awake all
night.

Pep drinks Red Bull, Shark, and M150 weren't enough. Methamphetamine, known
in Thai as "yaba" (crazy medicine), has hooked millions: skeletal sex
workers dieting on pills as cheap as a plate of pad thai; red-eyed taxi
drivers going 160 km/h on the expressway; teen motorcycle racing gangs;
staff at techno discos serving pills like beer or whiskey; and village youth
hanging around 7-Elevens all night.

Also known as the "crime drug," yaba has given Thailand one of the world's
highest per capita prison populations, including thousands of foreigners who
mistakenly thought Thailand was a free-for-all.

Prison might be the safest haven since Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra launched a three-month war on drugs Feb 1. Thousands on
blacklists risk arrest or murder by gangsters covering their tracks.
Thailand's Interior Ministry said recently that 1,282 had died. Police say
they've arrested nearly 10,000 suspects, including 48 state officials.

Even if authorities are inflating numbers to meet quotas and save their
jobs, few doubt the severity of the campaign. "In this war, drug dealers
must die," said Thaksin. "But we do not kill them. It is a matter of bad
guys killing bad guys."

Not all drug dealers conform to the stereotype of hardened wise-guys in
opulent palaces. A police raid on a ghetto off Bangkok's Lad Prao 82 netted
housewives who allegedly sold yaba at their pineapple and papaya stands. The
director of the Narcotics Control Office for northern Thailand says more
students are selling in schools since the anti-drug drive began.

Thaksin's opponents wonder how many murdered suspects were merely users,
part-time dealers or innocents caught in the crossfire. Three police
officers, charged with gunning down a nine-year-old boy while pursuing his
mother in a car, claim dealers did it to silence potential informants.

Even as Thaksin pledges an investigation, many Thais remain unconvinced that
the war on drugs is a war on thugs. Despite the interior minister's repeated
warnings that no one is immune, a group of intoxicated godfathers recently
boasted they have nothing to fear. Police have arrested only 36 suspects
accused of killing footsoldiers.

Foreigners are surprised that few Thais have publicly protested the carnage.
After United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights Asma Jahangir called for
restraint and independent investigation of extra- judicial killings, Thaksin
shrugged it off by saying Thailand has the right to clean its own house, and
police are only shooting in self- defense. Even some Buddhist monks say kill
them all.

There's a uniquely Thai reason for this consent. Drug-ridden Indonesia, the
Philippines, Myanmar and Cambodia, which might be tempted to copy Thai
methods, lack leaders with the persuasive power of King Bhumibol Adulyadej,
Thailand's most worshipped figure, whose reference to drug issues early this
year prompted elected officials to take action.

Indonesian crackdowns appear hypocritical to those who accuse the military
of priming vigilantes on anjing gila (crazy dog) to ransack breakaway East
Timor in 1999. Philippine leaders risk pushing the drug trade even deeper
into the hands of guerrillas accused of smuggling shabu through porous sea
borders. Likewise for Myanmar, where ethnic rebels manufacture much of
Asia's supply.

With the price of speed pills doubling in northern Thailand, addicts are
reportedly crossing borders to buy at fire-sale rates as low as 20 baht
(less than 50 U.S. cents) a pill. A decade ago, Thailand's ban on logging
pushed devastation into Cambodia and Laos.

So far, embassies need not issue travel advisories. But if casualties
continue to climb, international aid agencies that once swarmed into
Thailand to help refugees from Indochina wars might consider assisting
survivors of the drug war who can't afford losing face or income in
Thailand's intensive one-to-three-month rehab programs.

Though few will rally for the cause of drug dealers, authorities should be
careful not to blame the real victims. Along with Thailand's other social
problems - prostitution, drinking, and gambling on European football - drug
addiction is merely the symptom of a deeper ill - a very un-Buddhist
fixation with quick money that demands a faster lifestyle and increasingly
harder work and study routines. Instead of becoming the new Colombia, the
Kingdom should rediscover its Buddhist tradition of tolerance.