Preface

1In 2000, the Bangkok-based French scientific institution IRASEC (Institut de Recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine — Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia) asked geographer Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy and sociologist Joël Meissonnier to conduct research on the drug yaa baa, Thailand’s most popular amphetamine-type stimulant (ATS). Their common research resulted in a publication two years later entitled Yaa Baa: Production, trafic et consommation de méthamphétamine en Asie du Sud-Est continentale.1

2At the time of research, both yaa baa consumption rates and the number of users had increased so dramatically in Thailand that a sizeable share of the kingdom’s youth could be said to have been touched by the ATS drug in some way or another. Consumed by those who used it for work as well as for recreation, yaa baa became prominent and highly desirable. Students pressured to succeed academically, fishermen forced by their occupations to spend long nights on deck, teenagers trying to free themselves from the constraints of a strict social framework, and yuppies searching for meaning to their lives — all had begun to enlist the help of this cheap, colourful pill. Some did not even consider yaa baa to be a drug because its side effects were not perceived as harmful. And despite the tendency of wealthy Thais to avoid the consumption patterns and tastes of the poorer classes, this “nearly perfect product” appealed to all levels of Thai society.

3Yaa baa in Thai society did not appear out of thin air. In neighbouring Burma, methamphetamine pills came to rival both opium and heroin as the most profitable product in the narcotics trafficking business. The mountainous, minority-controlled border regions between Thailand and Burma have played a significant role in the recent emergence of the ATS trade. Long-established routes running through the Golden Triangle, which for centuries had been a dynamic hub for various kinds of commerce, now served the new opportunities brought forth by the pill trade.

4Downstream, numerous wholesalers with military and political links on both sides of the border supplied methamphetamine tablets to a multitude of retailers and dealers. Traffickers concealed their illegal cargo in truck petrol tanks, car chassis, and even inside their underwear. Customs posts were overwhelmed by the flood of pills, and officials were often encouraged to turn a blind eye to the passing traffic.

5But at the beginning of 2003, a political earthquake erupted in Thailand, leaving in its wake a new approach to solving what had become an acute, widespread drug problem: the “war against drugs” launched by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. During this three-month war, authorities seized 40 million methamphetamine tablets and jailed 92,500 drug addicts, 43,000 dealers, and 750 drug producers and importers. Leading drug traffickers arrested included Surasakdi Chantradraprasart, who controlled a large share of the Bangkok market. Some 1,300 civil servants were sacked or placed in custody for their complicity in the illegal drug trade.

6These dramatic outcomes of Thailand’s war against drugs have come at a very high social price. At least 2,500 people were killed during the anti-drug campaign, some of them no more than ordinary users. Children were also among the casualties. Nevertheless, the government claimed the operation to have been a “victory beyond expectation”.

7Thailand’s drug war “success” seems to have been sustained by another war against drugs — one ostensibly declared on the other side of the border — by the Burmese military regime. Under pressure from the international community, the Burmese junta appears to have targeted the source of its drug supply more directly than its neighbour. Burma’s campaign to eradicate poppy cultivation has come under scrutiny from the United States, the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Even China is now putting increasing pressure on its Burmese ally in this regard.

8Burmese authorities involved in countering the illicit drug trade have constantly displayed good intentions over the last few years. The “National Plan Against the Drug Menace” was launched by Burma’s Prime Minister General Than Shwe on 7 October 1998. The campaign received a boost in support from Than Shwe’s successor, the seemingly more decisive General Khin Nyunt. In 1996 a joint US-Burma opium yield survey reported an estimated 163,000 hectares of poppy cultivation and a production total of 2,500 tons of opium. By 2003, just seven years later, these figures had dropped sharply to 60,000 hectares of opium poppy cultivation, with a potential production yield of approximately 800 tons. As of 2004 it is expected that opium will completely disappear from Burmese fields before the end of the decade. Even the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), had allegedly assumed control over approximately one third of this lucrative industry, now seems ready to abandon opium in favour of substitute crops.

9But the 2005 deadline for eradicating poppy cultivation in the Wa region seems wildly optimistic, even if Pau Yu Chang, Chairman of the UWSA and the most powerful Wa leader, has proposed “to have his head chopped off if his promise is not fulfilled in time”. The crop substitution programs have not yet yielded positive results for the Wa, and this mountain-dwelling population is still desperately lacking in alternatives to opium cultivation. An estimated 300,000 people belonging mostly to ethnic minorities, some of whom live in de facto independence from Rangoon’s authority, remain engaged in poppy cultivation in Burma. Though the eradication process may be harsh, the worthiness of its goal is beyond question.

10But what about ATS?

11The Burmese government seems less amenable to dealing with this problem. During a seminar held in Rangoon on 27 January 2004 organised by the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies, police Colonel Hkam Awng, the Joint Secretary of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control, emphasised the inability of his government to cope with the ATS phenomenon without additional support. Because necessary precursor chemicals such as acetic anhydride and ephedrine are not produced in Burma, responsibility must also lie with India, China and Thailand, where these chemicals are manufactured.

12Colonel Hkam Awng’s stance in effect confirmed the extent of the ATS problem. The output of methamphetamine by producers of the UWSA is alleged to have increased dramatically, and is supposed to have made up for financial losses caused by the sharp decline in opium production. New transport routes, mainly at points further south of the Golden Triangle, have already been established to export Burmese-produced ATS. But how can this be, if the region’s primary drug market was supposedly eliminated by the Thai government’s recent anti-drug campaign?

13The “war against drugs” has had far-reaching consequences for Thai society, sometimes of unexpected proportions. Hundreds of extra-judicial executions badly affected Thailand’s image in the international arena, and the government’s reputation regarding human rights has been seriously called into question. The ends may justify the means, but drug eradication operations do not always appear to have been carried out for the sake of justice. In many cases, victims’ links to drug trafficking were not sufficiently demonstrated, and it appears that such actions were taken as the result of false denunciations or the settling of old scores.

14As a result of the campaign a significant number of families lost their only potential breadwinner, cither because the targeted family member was killed or put in jail. Thus, many households are now without an income. Some users, still coping with addiction, now find it harder to obtain their precious pills. Plans to rehabilitate drug users also appear tenuous when confronted with the scope of the drug problem. These developments have left many people worse off than ever and the distress is felt not only in Bangkok, but across the whole country.

15In the field of illicit drug studies, some believe that a “war against drugs” simply generates more demand. This rather simplistic view has prompted certain institutions to focus their efforts on producers and on the eradication of what they see as a significant threat to society. But even if one considers such a paradigm valid, it should not be forgotten that methamphetamine presents its own set of challenges to those who seek to eliminate it. While poppy fields can be easily located using satellite images complemented by ground surveillance, and heroin production requires heavy and costly equipment that is neither easily nor discreetly assembled, ATS manufacturing is much more complicated to detect. Creating an ATS production unit is inexpensive to undertake and easy to assemble. Some producers even establish their own “factories” at home. Furthermore, it is simpler still to produce ATS in the Golden Triangle region, where national laws are not strictly enforced. Hence if political solutions and government responses to the methamphetamine boom are sought via a focus on production alone, the problem is likely to remain unsolved.

16Why do people use illicit drugs? The question is not a new one. Recently the market price of a yaa baa tablet in Thailand increased dramatically, from around 100 baht (2 euros) at the end of 2002, to approximately 400 baht in 2003. The government’s terror campaign has shaken many ATS suppliers and consumers. Dealers are definitely more cautious, and the price hike may have discouraged those consumers who are less well-off. As violent as the campaign was in Thailand, every war must come to an end, and in the wake of this drug war the Thai government has claimed victory. However, the conditions that previously drove a substantial part of the Thai population to use methamphetamine have not disappeared, just because the drug war has ostensibly ended in victory.

17The 1997 financial crisis placed a great deal of social and economic strain on the poorest sectors of Thai society, and the country’s unemployment rate remains high. It is still relatively difficult for individuals lacking training or credentials to find and keep a job. For those people who are employed, and who hold jobs that are physically or mentally demanding, an artificial stimulant can still be welcome. The country’s younger generations are under pressure at school as the exam system is still very selective; they, too, may thrive on the mental boost provided by substances that enhance mental concentration and endurance.

18Thai society has also experienced tremendous social changes over the past 25 years. Many people have migrated from the countryside to seek jobs in urban areas, and the traditional family structure has changed accordingly. Extended family members that once took care of the younger children are now often geographically separated, and the nuclear family has become the norm in Thailand’s larger cities. Employed mothers and fathers who are subject to work pressures sometimes face difficulty in carrying out their parental roles at home. Left unsupervised and unattended, children must find their own ways to deal with a lack of structure, guidance, and even emotional support; under these circumstances they may still look for easy remedies to assuage their sense of loneliness or neglect.

19Schools were recently identified as one of the primary institutional locations for yaa baa trafficking and consumption, and many teachers and administrators are now struggling to find ways to navigate their pupils safely through this new passage. However, teaching is a very formal affair in the Thai system. Educational methods are at times rigid, based as they are on the need for absolute respect by pupils for their professors. Dialogue is the exception rather than the rule. Thus, teenagers may be inclined to find their own coping mechanisms. Peer groups build their own models of discourse and behaviour, inventing new reference points or becoming implicated in volatile situations that may degenerate into violent brawls for the most trivial of reasons.

20Additionally, there appears to be a lack of concrete shared goals among the younger generation of Thais. “Decline of politicisation, growth of derision” writes Joël Meissonnier, in reference to a common sensibility he observes among Thai young people. And drug use is unquestionably part of their “soft rebellious” stance.

21Interviewed by the Bangkok Post in December 2003, Chartichai Suthiklom, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board, estimated that as many as two million people in Thailand were involved in drug-related activities, either as addicts, consumers, traders, retailers, pusher, producers, financiers, support staff, chemical traders, or carriers. Most have now been re-integrated into society after rehabilitation treatment or prison terms. It is too early to measure the consequences of the entire campaign. But many people have lost their jobs, their social positions, and the validation of society. It is not difficult to imagine part of this population returning to re-established drug networks, even if their involvement is not exclusively based on ATS.

22Indeed, the 14,000 factories and 15,000 schools proclaimed “free of drugs” by Thai officials in December 2003 could well be the trees that hide the forest. Drug trafficking and illegal drug consumption have undoubtedly been tightly reined in for the time being. However, they most probably have not been driven away for good.

23While Thailand’s “war against drugs” was the opening battle, it is unlikely to be the final one in national efforts to eradicate drug use. And this book, written before the violent and tragic climax of the operation, seeks to explain why. Although the authors’ publication predates the war on drugs waged by the Thai Prime Minister, it can still provide readers with fundamental keys to understanding the historical, geographic, political and sociological settings of the yaa baa phenomenon. Such a book thus provides a better understanding to the current situation regarding illicit drugs in general, and ATS in particular, for both Burma and Thailand.

24Stéphane Dovert

25Director of the IRASEC
Bangkok, 5 February 2004