A DRUG CRAZE SWEEPS THAILAND

Methamphetamines From Burma Continue To Flood Thailand Where Use Among All
Ages Has Skyrocketed.

BANGKOK, THAILAND - Thai officials say last year was the worst year on
record for the use of methamphetamine, a form of speed, called ya ba, or
"crazy medicine" here. The Thai military is so alarmed that it has labeled
the surge in users a threat to national security.

Almost all of the methamphetamine is produced in labs in Burma (Myanmar),
where the drug lords who made the Golden Triangle synonymous with heroin
have diversified into a product that's cheaper to produce, smuggle, and
market than heroin, Thai police officials say.

Five years ago, just a trickle of methamphetamines were reaching Thailand.
Today it's a torrent. About 70,000 Thais were convicted for
methamphetamine-related offenses last year, up from 16,000 in 1997. Roughly
90 percent of all drug cases last year involved methamphetamines, and
narcotics-control officials estimate that 5 percent of the population uses
the drug.

Hope amid an epidemic Still, drug experts such as Kanda Choaymeung find
hope in the current situation. The psychologist and director of the
Rajadamri drug treatment center here says Thailand is finally getting its
arms around the problem. "This drug snuck up on us,'' she says. "We were so
focused on treating heroin addiction, we weren't prepared when it hit us."

In the past few years, a government-backed television and radio blitz with
movie and sports stars has slowly changed the drug's image from harmless to
sinister. Thailand's police force has become more adept at catching users.
And treatment centers have adapted to the special needs of their patients.

"People didn't think it was dangerous,'' says Chuanpit Choomwattana, a
drug-policy expert at Thailand's Narcotics Control board. "With heroin, you
can see the addiction, the damage to people almost right away. Ya ba is
more subtle at the start.''

Mrs. Kanda, who has participated in the overhaul of Thai treatment centers,
says statistics and anecdotal evidence show that the drug's spread seems to
be slowing for the first time. "Use will soon plateau," she says. "There is
a natural evolution of a drug epidemic, whether it's cocaine or heroin, and
I think we're near the top."

Still, millions of poor, laboring Thais use ya ba. It can cost as little as
$1 per pill, and the pills, which are usually eaten or ground up and
smoked, give users a feeling of hyper alertness.

In the northern provinces, where proximity to Burma makes ya ba plentiful
and cheap, alarming stories have surfaced of farmers paying seasonal
laborers with ya ba. Students take it as a cheap replacement for the
designer drug ecstasy at dance clubs.

A barrage from Burma Thai authorities estimate that 800 million pills ­ 13
pills for every Thai citizen ­ are produced in Burma annually. The Thai
police say production has grown increasingly sophisticated there, with some
labs turning out 50 million pills a year.

"The numbers reflect an epidemic; this is our biggest drug-control
problem,'' says Ms. Choomwattana.

In a new report on Thai drug use in 2001, the Thai Narcotics Control Board
stressed the way the drug cuts through class distinctions and age groups:
"Never before has any narcotic reached out to all levels of Thai society
like methamphetamine does," the report stated.

"Tommy" knows how ya ba became Thailand's most widely abused drug. Sitting
in a treatment center overlooking the boat traffic on a Bangkok canal, the
soft-spoken young man with small hoop earrings expects "to be fighting
cravings for the rest of my life."

When Tommy (not his real name)was 12, he was a classic underachiever. A
bright, verbal kid with an English father and a Thai mother, he felt
ignored by his busy parents and drifted into a dangerous group of friends
that included a motorbike gang in his middle class Bangkok neighborhood. "I
turned to my friends as a second family, for love and belonging," he says.

He first took methamphetamines out of curiosity, and at the start of his
early teens he was taking two $3 pills a week.

"When I took it, it felt like all of my problems melted away," Tommy says.

He was soon taking 12 pills a day.

"I started out buying with my pocket money, but it became very expensive. I
had to do something else," he says. "I started stealing in the end, car
stereos, motorbikes, anything. I stole a diamond ring from my sister, money
from my parents. My whole life was revolving around drugs."

He became a dealer, introducing other students to the drug. When Tommy was
16, his parents sent him to an Australian drug-treatment center. He guesses
that he's been through 10 different treatment courses. His latest relapse
was a month ago, after a year of keeping himself clean.

"It's psychologically tiring, fighting against thinking about it all the
time,'' he says. "I wake up in the morning with them on my mind: What color
are they, how strong are they these days, how much do they cost? Ya ba has
taken so much from me."

"With methamphetamines, the psychological component to the addiction is
even stronger than with heroin,'' says Kanda. "It can be overpowering."

Finding a cure That's why early treatment methods, based on heroin
treatment protocols, were thwarted. Specialists brought a user in, cleared
the physical signs of the drug from their system, and taught them
strategies to avoid relapsing.

But with ya ba, says Kanda, that almost always failed. They found that
long-term ­ more than six months ­ psychological counseling followed by
twice-weekly meetings at a 12-step program like Narcotics Anonymous was
needed to help users with their problem.

A ya ba spread through Asia? Though law-enforcement officials say the cheap
pills now being produced in Burma are mostly hitting the Thai market, that
could change. Countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and India have
reservoir populations of users among truck drivers and manual laborers,
just as Thailand did at the start of its epidemic.

If production continues to increase, and use in Thailand has in fact
plateaued, drug merchants may seek to carve out new markets, just as
Burmese heroin production began to reach into European, Australian, and US
markets after the Vietnam wa