Don Pathan

 WAR ON DRUGS: Chiang Rai ya ba seizures 'doubling'

Don Pathan
THE NATION

CHIANG RAI, Thailand

The amount of methamphetamines confiscated by authorities in Chiang Rai province over the past seven months is close to the total amount ceased by provincial officials last year, a senior police officer said yesterday.

According to Pol Col Thanakit Teurnkaew, a deputy commander at the provincial counter-narcotic unit, Chiang Rai authorities seized a total of 4,661,324 tablets of methamphetamines between January 1 and July 31 this year, compared to a total of 5,583,477 for all of last year.

"At the rate we are going, we will double the entire amount we had confiscated for the year 2000," Thanakit said. 

Chiang Rai has for decades been a major drug route for illicit opium and heroin - and in the recent years, methamphetamines - coming out of the infamous Golden Triangle, an area where Thailand, Laos and Burma share a common border.

"It's not that we are easing our counter-narcotic efforts. We have explored every possible channel, including public relations, educating the masses and setting up more checkpoints," Thanakit said.

"The problem is that producers still see the illicit business as something that is worth the risk," he said.

Thanakit said traffickers had become more sophisticated, pointing to the regular clashes with Thai soldiers along the border near Tak province as well as a major drug bust earlier this year in the Andaman Sea. "It's like a balloon affect. When the authorities squeeze one area, the illicit activities pop up in another," he said.

According to Office of the Narcotic Control Board estimates, about 90 per cent of illicit drugs produced in the area ends up in the streets of various cities in the country.

The Thai army has blamed a pro-Rangoon ethnic army, the United Wa State Army, for much of the methamphetamines flooding into the country, saying the group has over the years expanded its troops and illicit operations along the common border to areas near Tak province, as well as areas just north of the Golden Triangle bordering Laos.

It said a number of the clandestine drug labs have "popped up" in areas along the Mekong River on the Lao side near Burma since the Thai army stepped up security along the Thai-Burma border following a cross-border clash earlier this year.

The Burmese government has said it is being unfairly singled out and that Thailand and other neighbouring countries need to do more to curb the flow of precursor chemicals needed to make the drugs.

Following the border clashes, top army brass from both sides engaged in a lengthy war of words, accusing their counterparts of taking kickbacks from the drug traffickers.