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Chapter 6

Methamphetamine Use Among Workers and Low-income Groups

p. 65-80


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1The average age of yaa baa consumers in Thailand is between 16 and 23 years. As it is so popular with youngsters, methamphetamine use is also dramatically expanding in schools. Methamphetamine consumption among students throughout the country more than doubled between 1994 and 1998, according to data from the Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB).1 The figures follow an exponential trend, and are set to double once again within a year. For 1999, a figure of 463,184 drug addicts was advanced by the ONCB, which represented at the time an estimated 1.2 per cent of the total school population consuming drugs or associated with trafficking. The most intensive drug use occurs in public establishments, where, besides amphetamine-type stimulants, marijuana and other inhaled drugs were also popular.

2While high drug consumption levels among Thailand’s school population present a disturbing picture, it is also important to view this in an international context. Certainly, as the annual report of the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) indicates, Thai youngsters are significant drug users compared to their counterparts in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries.2 On the other hand, Thailand is approaching the average consumption levels of European youngsters, and remains well below the rates found among North American youth and their fellow Australians.

3The rapid growth in drug use, and therefore trends over time, give cause for alarm in Thailand. In 1990, for instance, only 97 cases of drug users were treated for methamphetamine addiction, whereas since 1995 addiction treatment centres have reached their maximum capacity. The explosion of methamphetamine use really took place in the mid-1990s. In 1994, a study by the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) revealed that the demand for methamphetamine had overtaken that for heroin.3 More recent sources reveal that there are 2.7 million occasional consumers of the product and 300,000 regular consumers, of which 90 per cent are adolescents.4

4Age is probably the most obvious dividing line. Although not exclusively a young person’s drug, yaa baa use is most prevalent among Thai youth compared to their adult counterparts. Another obvious division is that between well-to-do consumers and the less-privileged. The metham-phetamine pill is a highly flexible product — in marketing jargon, it “transcends market segmentation”. However, different users consume this psychotropic substance for different purposes.

5Historically amphetamine first became popular with agricultural workers in Thailand who used it to stave off fatigue caused by intense physical activity; truck drivers also took advantage of the drug’s ability to promote concentration for long periods of time. As methamphetamine became generally available on the market, its consumer base began to include younger people. Methamphetamines progressively replaced amphetamines without consumers even realizing it. All stimulants began to appear similar in their effects, no matter which of the two substances they contained. From very early on, amphetamine and methamphetamine had been grouped under the same popular but deceptive appellation yaa maa, which was then renamed yaa baa by official decree in 1996.

6In 1997, the ONCB drew up an exhaustive list of yaa baa pills available on the Thai market. The results included 4 types of amphetamine pills, 11 types of ephedrine pills (unrefined), 3 pill types composed of Fenproporex, and 72 varieties of methamphetamine pills. All of the different preceding pill types were known under the same general name by consumers.

7Given this blend of products, it becomes difficult to pinpoint sociologically who consumes what. This leads to a situation rare in the history of drugs. Most types of drugs, with their differentiated price, availability, and effects, tend to suit one category of users or the other. In the West, cocaine is popular with artists and celebrities; in South America, glue and inhaled substances are consumed by street children of the large capitals.

8Thai yaa baa escapes this specialisation. It is not a drug consumed only by “people who have problems”, explains Mrs. Pim of the ONCB, who is in charge of creating drug prevention messages for the media.5 Accordingly, prevention efforts must reach a wide audience, including youngsters seemingly “without problems” from the middle or upper class who are likewise not spared the risks of abuse.

9Mrs. Lek, who runs an addiction treatment program, explained that rehabilitation centres that used to treat drug addicts of the lower classes exclusively now also deal with patients who might be students, children of doctors, or police officers.6 If opiate users in Southeast Asia have generally been low-income, this is definitely not the case for ATS users currently.

In a blue, modest building of the city of Bang Kla, adolescents from the wealthier sections of society are treated. [The goal is to help them overcome] their methamphetamine addiction. Whether daughters of businessmen, bankers, parliamentarians, or army officers, they are all “hooked” on what the Thais call yaa baa and Westerners call speed. Sister Rosaline Ngamwong is in charge of the Women’s Rebirth Centre. She is still shocked to see young girls who have become dependent on the drug, which is most popular among the Thai working class. “They are young girls from good families, belonging to high society, people who are well-off and lack for nothing”, she says. The country realizes that drug addiction has nothing to do with social barriers.
“Thais Feel New Urgency to Stem Flow of Narcotics”, Financial Times, 1 May 2001

10According to Kaija Korpi, the large number of ATS users clearly indicates that the phenomenon is not limited to the less privileged.7 Rather, it extends to all social classes in Thailand. Youngsters are the most affected, but the drug’s effects are not limited to them alone. The poorest as well as the wealthiest are also not immune. Methamphetamine does not play on restricting social determinisms. Consumers attribute different properties to the drug, and use it for different purposes.

11Two complementary approaches are used here to identify the social profiles of methamphetamine consumers. First, consumption habits of members of the lower classes in Thailand who were the first to use the drug on a widespread basis are examined. Then consumption trends of young people, a more recent but also more massive phenomenon, are taken into account. The distinction between the two groups is, however, far from absolute. Not all young consumers are from well-to-do sections of society, while the older ones are not uniformly poor. Street children account for some of the impoverished younger users, for instance, while prosperous middle-aged prosperous bureaucrats and other state security authorities make up part of the older contingent.

Fighting Fatigue, Boosting Energy: Methamphetamine as Fuel

A “Work Culture” of Stimulants

12A 2000 study advanced the figure of 200,000 to 300,000 workers thought to be using yaa baa on a regular basis for Bangkok alone.8 Thai society has become host to a “culture of stimulants” at many social levels, particularly that of the working class. If consumption of tea and coffee is excluded,9 some 88 per cent of workers can be considered to use artificial stimulants.10 Apart from yaa baa, they consume huge quantities of energy drinks. An attentive observer of a work site can easily spot, here and there, multitudes of small empty bottles of smoked glass with red and yellow labels whose motif suggests a luminous flash. This market in new kinds of stimulating drinks is shared by about ten brands. The drinks are classified by an international drug prevention magazine as belonging to the category of smart drugs.11

13Smart drugs have closely followed the explosive outbreak of new synthetic drugs with stimulating effects. These products are not well-identified and stand midway between food supplements and medicines. The smart drugs market has been able to attract a population fringe of youngsters in the West and older groups in Thailand who wish to get the “buzz” of drug tripping without any major consequences to their health.

14The moniker smart drugs actually refer to four varieties of drugs already in general circulation, more or less. Strictly speaking, smart drugs such as Piracetam, Vasopressine, and Hydergine — also called neo-tropic drugs — are first and foremost medicines to treat cerebral degeneration resulting from senility, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s disease. However, some consumers also use them as mental stimulants. These products are mainly on sale over the Internet.

15Smart drinks whose composition consists to varying degrees of taurine, antioxidants, vitamins A,B,C, or E, choline, lecithin, amino acids or phenolalanine, are technically food substitutes. They were initially developed by two NASA scientists, Duck Pearson and Sandy Shaw, who had previously created special food for astronauts in the organisation’s space program. The scientists later came up with an entire range of food supplements sold in smart shops or by mail order. These products usually contain caffeine, extracts of Ginkgo biloba12 and ginseng, the latter two supposedly able to slow down the aging process. Smart drinks rarely pose a risk for their consumers other than that of vitamin toxicity, a condition that can sometimes be fatal.

16If smart drinks are tempting neuronal accelerators, smart products are more worrying. Originally smart products were used as substitutes for illegal drugs, likely to produce the same effects but in a harmless way. In this range, one finds for example Herbal Ecstasy or Explore. These products are highly stimulating. A majority of them pose hidden dangers in the dubious combination of certain herbs with ephedrine in their composition.

17Finally, energy drinks would, in theory, seem to be a harmless component of the recent smart wave. Made from water, caffeine and vitamins, they are touted as energising drinks and sold in sports clubs. These activators of physical effort such as Black Power, Red Devil or XTC make reference to the universe of illegal drugs in their packaging and names, leading consumers to associate these legal products with illegal ones. Although these drinks are freely sold over the counter, by virtue of their names and the effects they are supposed to produce they can come to resemble other product ranges that are far less legitimate.

18In Thailand the smart market is occupied by Krating Daeng (literally Red Bull, a synonym in Thai for tonic), M150, Lipovitan, and the recently introduced Carabao. An analysis of the composition of these products reveals the presence of taurine in some of them, especially the drink M150. This places such drinks midway between smart drinks and energy drinks. According to economists Nualnoi, Noppanun and Lewis, demand for these highly energising legal drinks suggests a breach in the traditional methamphetamine market. Energy drinks cost less than yaa baa pills.13 They are sometimes even offered to drivers by gas stations attendants when drivers stop for petrol.

19Since the beginning of aggressive prevention campaigns against methamphetamine, a new trend has begun taking shape. Some evidence shows that employees, drivers, and labourers are gradually substituting less harmful energy drinks for yaa baa. For instance, 42 per cent of labourers questioned in Bangkok by the Thai Farmers Research Centre claimed they use energising drinks regularly, rather than illegal stimulants.14 But if they encounter pressure from their bosses or families that obliges them to increase their pace of work, 20 per cent of them admitted to switching over to yaa baa.

20Generally speaking, all workers use yaa baa to escape fatigue. However, it is workers on a relatively fixed and limited daily or monthly income for whom yaa baa use can wreak the most havoc. Major one-time or occasional events such as a marriage or cremation, or purchase of a house or car, can tax the already meagre household incomes of employees or independent workers such as taxi drivers or office workers. The worker therefore decides to put in more hours at work to compensate for additional expenses. Such conditions go a long way in explaining the socio-economic reality behind the “culture of stimulants” that has gradually taken root among the middle and lower-income classes in Thailand. There are three reasons for why such a culture has come into existence: a tenuous social control, an underestimation of the risks involved, and pressure from employers.

21The social control exerted over labourers to dissuade them from using drugs is far more ambiguous for yaa baa than it is for heroin. If a member of the family resorts to the latter, he faces the disapproval of those around him. However, it is another thing to admit to methamphetamine use, when such use can raise one’s tolerance for work and therefore prospects for greater income. This essential fact distinguishes the social consequences of methamphetamines from those of other hard drugs. Yaa baa is not perceived among the lower classes as a hedonistic pleasure to be condemned, but a tool for production to be increased. Consequently, those who resort to it are considered to be particularly heroic by their families.

22The physical stamina acquired from using yaa baa confounds the image of the drug. Workers perceive it as less harmful than other drugs. Can yaa baa be so terrible if it enables one to bring home badly-needed income? From the outset, dangers posed by yaa baa have been under-estimated; the TFRC survey revealed that many labourers do not realize its possible negative effects. They see it as a harmless stimulant that simply allows them to work longer. Some even think that they cannot become addicted, and many claim to know the “real methods” of avoiding side effects. Therefore this psychotropic substance does not induce much worry.

23The rapid transition from an agricultural society to an industrial one has forced changes in work habits and the pace of work. Overnight, Thai peasants were transformed into labourers, but many have continued to experience difficulty in adapting to new conditions, explains Mr. Sorasit Sangprasert, General Secretary of the Office of Narcotics Control Board.15 Workers have thus used stimulants to recalibrate their metabolisms to the demands of industrial labour.

24Jacques Vincent, a Bangkok-based correspondent for a mainstream newswire service, observes that workers’ consumption of stimulants underpins the “tendency by Thai bosses to treat workers like slaves on work sites”.16 Any European who is familiar with the struggles in France to protect those without power would recognise the Thai working world as one where the principle “might makes right” prevails. In Thailand, workers’ salary levels are not so much the result of negotiation as the outcome of a unilateral decision taken by the boss. The employer exercises a considerable influence over his employees, and his power remains uncontested. It is therefore difficult for workers to press directly for pay increases.

25If a worker or an employee needs to earn more money, therefore, he simply works harder. He will content himself with giving more time to his work, increase his output, or undertake a second job. In Thailand, moonlighting is common and workers seldom balk at the prospect of doubling their work hours.

26The construction sector in Thailand has notably high levels of drug use. Companies or sub-contractors employ clandestine Burmese or Cambodian workers who have no other option but to accept the conditions they are offered. Yaa baa is sometimes even foisted on workers by the employers themselves to increase workers’ output.

Shortly after midnight at Samut Sakhon, two men dressed in combat uniform wait in a dark corner of the fishing port of Maha Chai. They gesture to the labourers, who are in tatters. The workers weigh the fresh fish at around 1:00am. When the employees are gathered, one of the men takes a sheet of paper from his pocket and calls them by name. As the workers identify themselves, the man glances at his list and asks a labourer to confirm a figure: “Have you ordered 20 tablets?” The labourer indicates yes and the other dealer takes out 20 tablets from a paper bag and gives them to the labourer, while his colleague continues to confirm orders. The two uniformed men work for the fishery, and the tablets they distribute are methamphetamine. A close collaborator of the boss of the company states that the latter authorizes his staff to buy the pills wholesale and sell them to the other employees. “In the profession, this is not unknown to anyone. Each labourer would buy yaa baa at 80 baht per pill (2 euros). But they earn around 100 baht daily and spend 80 for a tablet! How could they manage to live on 20 baht per day?” To make it more affordable the employer might buy yaa baa at the wholesale price and sell it to his workers at “cost” — around 20 baht per pill. “They need these pills”, he states. “Otherwise they would not be able to withstand the effort … without these pills, we could not finish in time and meet our commitment to our clients. All the fishermen on board, and not only the fishermen of this fishery, are ‘hooked’ on yaa baa”.
“New Amphetamine Epidemic”, Bangkok Post, 16 March 1997

27Thai employers have played a key role in promoting methamphetamine at work. Some viewed this as a smart way to increase company productivity without raising salaries. This reasoning is clearly harmful for the employee, who is pressed into a regular consumption cycle to maintain productivity levels, thus risking his health and consequently, his job. But it is in line with a logic that considers labourers to be available, dispensable, and interchangeable. This logic is all the more convincing during periods of economic crisis when the number of unskilled people looking for jobs rises.

28Industrial workers are not the only ones affected by methamphetamine consumption, and the situation is far from being limited to urban areas. It extends to agricultural workers, peasants and the entire rural population. Yaa baa is transported to the most remote areas, where peasants dissolve it in a bottle of water from which they drink while working in the fields.17

29Near the Burmese border, drug consumption levels are particularly alarming. According to a report of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 80 to 90 per cent of people in the age range 14 to 35 are thought to be consumers and/or dealers of yaa baa in these areas. The fact that many refugees from Burma live in this region is no coincidence.18

Social Risks

30Ingesting an unreasonably large number of yaa baa tablets can cause damage to the individual, with resulting negative social consequences. But the cases of methamphetamine-related dementia that have been identified are usually explained by multiple drug reactions, as when yaa baa is taken with alcohol or heroin. Methamphetamine is certainly not harmless, but when used moderately it is unlikely to cause social disruption. Workers, drivers and employees who do use it regulate their consumption — for their own safety as well as to keep their job.

31Truck drivers find methamphetamine to be indispensable to their work, but tend to consume it in small doses, as in a quarter of a pill at a time. Referring to a study carried out by Yothin Sawaengdi and Monphan Issawaphak and commissioned by the Thai Development Research Institute, Pasuk Phongpaichit et al. state that regular consumption among truck drivers is most often limited to one pill per day.19

32According to the ethnolinguist Bernard Antoine, the central Thai city of Lampang was formerly notorious for its unusual number of road accidents: “There used to be many accidents there because, from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, it was at this point that the effects of the yaa maa [i.e. yaa baa] pill wore off.”20 The effects of methamphetamine recede suddenly, leaving the driver in the grip of sudden and overwhelming fatigue. Hence, road risks associated with yaa baa use are quite high. The TDRI study shows that 82 per cent of drivers interviewed believe that methamphetamine allowed them to increase their income, but that 89 per cent thought that the risk of being a victim of — or responsible for — road accidents would correspondingly decline if they were to do without it.

33If methamphetamine has social costs, it also has very definite financial advantages. It is difficult to measure the benefits of the extra hours worked by the drivers thanks to active support of the drug. By allowing them to carry out many journeys in a short period of time, drivers who take yaa baa reduce their employers’ costs. They themselves profit in the bargain, as their pay is calculated in terms of a fixed salary, in addition to a commission that varies in relation to the number of trips they make. This remuneration system obviously encourages the use of stimulants.

The Poverty Drug

Labour Sources for Drug Trafficking

34Methamphetamine, largely used for reducing fatigue and the pain associated with overwork, can also help the less privileged forget their daily misery. Being cheap, it is within the means of the poor. Among such users it is often taken in conjunction with heroin and when that is the case, is generally taken intravenously.

35The increase in yaa baa consumption can be partially attributed to a change in behaviour of heroin consumers. If the production of yaa baa is most often found at opiate production sites, and if the distribution of yaa baa has long relied on routes used for opiate trafficking, one can speculate that the overlap of the two drug worlds extends right up to the consumer himself. Heroin addicts are so taken in by methamphetamine that some observers are convinced an addict’s consumption of the latter can increase without his giving up previous addictions. It has, however, been noted that some heroin users who lack money will turn to yaa baa as a cheaper substitute.

36Poverty lies at the heart of the yaa baa distribution system. The squatter district of Klong Toey in Bangkok, with more than 100,000 inhabitants, is a gigantic hub through which transits the essential stock of methamphetamine meant for the capital. It is estimated that every day, 25,000 amphetamine pills are sold in this district. The majority of yaa baa dealers in the capital are recruited from here.21

37Klong Toey was first formed in the 1950s when operations that were located in the country’s rapidly-growing capital needed to attract rural labour. The first residents came on foot or by tramway from Blampee, in the Samut Prakan region, and constructed cardboard shacks there. Other people learned by word of mouth that they could find work in Bangkok and settle in Klong Toey. Over time, the shanty-town became known as a place that housed the underprivileged, and could offer its inhabitants access to the urban impetus that would enable them to find a job. But eventually the community was hit by a wave of evictions following huge road and construction projects in the urban areas. The resulting increase in the unemployment rate in this district is a recent phenomenon.

38Mrs. Nong, the project head of Klong Toey’s Duang Prateep Foundation, suggests that some local politicians have open relations with drug traffickers there.22 During election time politicians generally buy the votes of the inhabitants, who sell them willingly. A year prior to the latest elections for local representatives, drug traffickers had financed 300 new households to settle in Klong Toey. At election time, the votes of the new inhabitants had naturally been bought.

39There are few large traffickers in Klong Toey. Mrs. Nong reports there might be four or five who live in the district only sporadically, and move often. Their role is to bring in the drug and to persuade the poorest to sell it. Large traffickers exploit the weaknesses of the credulous and uneducated, transforming children into dealers by using a simple formula: “Ten pills sold and you get one free”. They also use young girls, who are less suspect than boys in the eyes of the police. The girls transport the drug over long distances, sometimes even from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.

I know two sisters aged eight and twelve years. The traffickers succeeded in convincing the younger one to travel. They took the child with them to the north. Even though she was always accompanied, it is she who carried the drug with her on the way back. While leaving, the traffickers telephoned their contacts in the army or the police to know if the checking was strict. As there was a danger, the trafficker and the little girl halted at a hotel. It is there that the children often first become victims of rape and are infected with AIDS. Back in Klong Toey, the little girl arrived, covered with gifts, dolls, and toys. The elder sister had only one desire: to also follow this man. On their return, the traffickers often get rid of the children. They sell them in the brothels of the district. There are ten of them here.
Interview with Mrs. Nong on 5 July 2001

40Hoping to escape from poverty, slum inhabitants are also tempted by fabulous riches promised them by lotteries and, especially, gambling. Drug traffickers therefore use the latter as a means of recruiting dealers, according to authors Nualnoi, Noppanun, and Lewis.23 When losers can no longer pay their debts, they must mortgage their shack to the traffickers. Debtors are sometimes forced to pay daily interest on the money lost in gambling. If they cannot come up with the money, they are obliged to hand over their children to the traffickers, who use them to deliver drugs to consumers. Those debtors who refuse to do so are beaten up and have to leave their homes.

41When there is no child to be “held hostage”, wives or girlfriends of the unlucky gamblers can also become victims of the trafficker. According to Susanne McGregor, sex work, drug use, and drug trafficking are closely linked in a complex way.24 A common scenario is that of a drug user who lacks funds, a drug trafficker who is in debt, or a gambler who is unlucky, whose female companion is then put at risk. She, the companion, then enters into prostitution out of financial necessity to help her partner repay his debt.

42Thais are generally debtors. From the gambler to the taxi driver to the small trader, everyone is perpetually in the process of repaying their debts little by little, meanwhile contracting fresh ones before the old ones are paid off. If the truck driver takes yaa baa to fight against fatigue, it is also because he has to work harder for money to pay his monthly car instalments.

My Thai friends take loans at 20 per cent from money lenders. However, were they to wait for one month to make their purchases, they could pay without borrowing. But what is important for them is to have a small sum available in case of unforeseen circumstances. They love having a small sum of money, right there, before their eyes. It gives them the impression that they are secure. In Thailand, one must always put aside a little amount of money because one learns the date of the tamboon (a religious donation organized by the monks) only at the last moment. And one must always have money available for the tamboon because during the ceremony, the donors are listed. And one loses face if one has been stingy.
A Thai proverb says: “One must always have a second shirt that one can sell to save his face”. It means that when friends arrive unexpectedly, one has to face unforeseen expenses. If there is no “second shirt” to sell, one would also lose face as one would have to sell the one that one is wearing. Therefore, the Thais say that it does not pinch to pay one or two baht per day, one hardly feels it. One or two baht are hardly anything at all, even if one takes twice as much time to repay it”.
Interview with Bernard Antoine on 15 July 2001

43The habit of taking credit creates a social link, a point that the traffickers well understand. Credit puts the borrower under an obligation. Making use of an already widespread cultural practice, traffickers have implemented a system of exchange involving the interdependencies of all participants in the drug supply chain. The link with credit ensures that no participant can leave the “milieu” without difficulty. Most often, it is only for the first purchase from the large wholesaler, medium wholesaler, or retailer that one must pay in cash.25 Once a relationship of trust is established in drug transactions, credit is used. As each trafficker is both creditor and debtor, he remains a prisoner of the market, where there is no clear exit strategy.

From Worker to Unemployed

44When the financial crisis struck Southeast Asia in 1997, many Thai workers found themselves without a job. They left their work sites, but many retained the habit of consuming yaa baa, which had allowed them to endure a full day of hard work. Paradoxically, if while working labourers take only one tablet in the morning and another in the evening, they are tempted to considerably increase their dosage when they are out of work. The unemployed generally look for friends with whom to share their yaa baa. Together they forget the humiliation of being poor, which is particularly difficult to do in Thailand where, according to Mrs. Nong, prosperity is by far the main source of social distinction. “Being rich” is a sign of the merit that one has acquired in a previous life. Thus, when one has money, one should consume amply, tip generously, and in general act to display one’s good standing. “In this society, the poor do not have a place. Nothing seems to be within their reach. The media never takes an interest in the inhabitants of Klong Toey, but they are far more interested in the life of those who live in rich localities”.26

45As Vincent de Gaulejac points out,27 poverty is humiliating when factors such as the following are present: degrading conditions of mental and physical existence; stigmas and norms that result in the less well-off being scorned and rejected; and a feeling of degradation by those who are on the lower rungs of the social ladder or on a downward social trajectory. The poor in Thailand would seem to experience all of these conditions.

46Thailand follows the pattern intrinsic to capitalism development according to which wealth and autonomy go together. To fulfil onself, one must be professionally and in particular financially successful. On the contrary, to be excluded from the competition, or to drop out of it, is to be judged a failure by the preceding criteria. For sociologist Robert Castel, the “useless of the world” are those who lack financial autonomy and are incapable of providing for their needs.28 They are therefore perceived as failures. If there is no “pressing reason” such as a mental handicap, religious choice, historical circumstance, or health problem to justify this state, it is the person himself — and only himself — who is perceived as being responsible for his situation and is therefore scorned.

47In Thailand the question of working life and mental well-being should, however, be understood in context. The link between job and income is quite loose. Not all types of work allow one to live above the poverty line, but despite this, a huge majority of the active working population manages to get by. Men and women do paid work whether or not it is declared, and whether or not the working conditions resemble those of formal employment. The country’s actual unemployment level is probably not much beyond five per cent, suggesting that the criteria for unemployment bear closer inspection.

48Nevertheless, workers in many types of jobs remain unsatisfied. Taxi drivers and travelling salesmen complain of too much competition. The recession following the crisis of 1997 had contradictory effects.29 On the one hand it caused a wave of underemployment, or one might say “bad employment”. This generated a level of social frustration that favoured increased methamphetamine consumption by those affected. But by restricting available income, the crisis also limited people’s ability to consume. The net result of these contradictory effects seems to have been a general reduction in the price of yaa baa. In poor localities, for instance, one can typically buy a methamphetamine pill for 50 baht (approximately 1.5 euros).

Homeless Children

49Children as well as adults in Thailand are implicated in the undeniable link between drugs and poverty. Street children are employed by traffickers. In slums, barely-educated parents far from their native place lose their links with the system of rural values to such an extent that sometimes they “rent” or “sell” their children to others involved in drugs. Drug traffic naturally relies on the poorest to accomplish the most dangerous missions. Traffickers exploit the cultural poverty of the down-and-outs to entice them, and exploit their indigence to control them.

50Primary and secondary school education in the country is supposed to be a right, but is only one in theory. Thailand has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, which stipulates that all children who are born or living in the territory should have access to education. The reality, however, is less generous. Children older than six are supposed to be educated in the village where their family officially resides. The government has overlooked the fact that the huge rural migrations of the 1970s and 1980s, particularly from the northeast, had forced many children to accompany their parents to urban areas. As migrant families did not settle in the city legally, it was impossible for their children to attend school. Children of labourers who live on work sites, where employment is transitory, are also denied access to education and many remain illiterate.30

51Additionally, many children from refugee families lack both education and a permanent home. According to journalistic sources, Thailand had 15,000 street children before the economic crisis.31 In its aftermath, the number of street children is estimated to have increased by 15 per cent, with many working as rag dealers, petty thieves, or prostitutes. If they lack money to buy yaa baa, they can earn a salary to do so by making deliveries. Often used as couriers for supplying drugs, these street children begin using psychotropic substances themselves from early on. They take yaa baa in conjunction with cheaper drugs such as glue or other inhalants.

Prostitutes and Victims of the Flesh Trade

52Prostitution is widespread in Thailand. One study shows that in the north of the country, 73 per cent of conscripts in a selected military contingent had had their first sexual relationship with a prostitute, and of this group, 97 per cent did not limit their encounters with prostitutes to this “rite of initiation”.32 While the conscripts generally found nothing wrong with this practice, such attitudes have been also found among married men, many of whom also frequently consort with prostitutes. A “guys’ night out” typically includes sharing a meal and beer — and female company.

53Some women, as well as the occasional man and child, resort to occasional prostitution as a “sideline”, as compared to “direct” prostitution that constitutes an individual’s main livelihood. Between 1996 and 1999, according to a survey of the Health Ministry, there was a decrease in the number of brothels and “official” prostitutes observed. On the other hand, the number of beer bars, massage parlours, and restaurants or karaoke places offering sexual services increased. Trends indicate that places where prostitution can be found are mushrooming.33

54Undoubtedly the most obvious link between drugs and prostitution is financial. Some methamphetamine-dependent consumers spend 300 to 600 baht per day on their habit. To obtain this sum, young men generally prefer drug-dealing and young women prostitution. Only occasionally do members of either sex resort to stealing to finance their drug habit.

55Paradoxically, the number of young people who have resorted to prostitution under pressure from the traffickers seems to have decreased, while the numbers of people doing so voluntarily for pragmatic reasons has risen. Young girls of 14 who have completed their primary education have fewer livelihood options than young boys. Among employment alternatives for girls, prostitution is particularly lucrative.34 Offering oneself to a man in exchange for money is not perceived as a lasting work identity. As a consequence, the dangers of this practice and the stigmas associated with it are often ignored.35

56Twenty years ago, most of the prostitutes in Thailand were of rural origin and sent a large part of their income to their families who had stayed back in the village.36 Lured by dreams of a better life in the city, many young girls voluntarily left the village to earn money and pass on the benefits to their family. Since then the influx has not stopped — far from it — but over time female migration between the city and countryside has become less frenzied. Concomitantly, the urban misery associated with yaa baa has come to play an increasing role in the dynamics of prostitution.

57Voluntary prostitution should not mask the fact that significant numbers of people, especially young women and children, are victims of the flesh trade being held against their will. David Feingold, who has studied this phenomenon in the regions of Upper Mekong, notes that many women and children who are sold do not participate in the sex trade but work as slaves in tapioca plantations. All the same, in the urban areas, there are many sexual slaves. Around 10,000 prostitutes of Burmese origin, often members of ethnic minorities, are thought to be forced to participate in the Thai sex industry every year.37 They are locked up, at least until the sex workers can reimburse the person who has bought them from the trafficker.

58Refraining from sex during menstrual periods — during which time Thai prostitutes are traditionally excused from working — is not always allowed for prostitutes of Burmese origin. In Thailand, Burmese sex workers must submit to physical relations that are sometimes violent and often unprotected, whether they consent to them or not. These young women are particularly vulnerable as they are handicapped by their mediocre knowledge of the Thai language. Moreover, their presence in Thailand being illegal, they lack access to medical treatment and cannot claim any rights.

59A young woman explains that due to the pain, she can hardly bear to have intercourse more than five times a day. By using methamphetamine, she can withstand the pain far more easily.38 The use of yaa baa here is closely linked to the desire to forget physical and psychological pain.

Refugees and Immigrant Workers

60Refugees often come from the same regions as victims of the traffic in human beings. Chased from their homes by repression or misery or very simply lured by what they perceive as an El Dorado of Thailand, all refugees share similar linguistic difficulties and illegal status. Compared to victims of trafficking, however, refugees have generally arrived in the Thai kingdom of their own free will.

61In Thailand, clandestine workers are often accompanied by their family. Men generally work in agriculture harvesting rubber or cultivating rice or sugar cane, or in fishing, construction, or factories. The most painful, tiring or dangerous tasks, such as work in toxic environments, are given to them. To complement household income, children of the migrant workers are often asked to contribute from the age of twelve.39 Some cannot find a job near their parents. They are therefore entrusted to other families to become household help, or to restaurant owners to work as waiters. They can also be found in gas stations, where they find ways of making themselves useful.

62Once they are far from their family of origin, working children are more prone to exploitation in such things as the timing and conditions of work and demands for “sexual services” to be thrown in. Employers also urge child workers to use yaa baa to cope with adverse working conditions and fight fatigue. Many refugees who have worked as prostitutes recall being in situations such as these.

Notes de bas de page

1Nualnoi Treerat et al., Global Study on Illegal Drugs, p. 34.

2UNDCP (2001), pp. 260–1.

3This study was also mentioned in the report of the UNDCP (2001), p. 261.

4“Smuggling Unabated”, Bangkok Post, 22 Aug. 2001.

5Interview on 13 July 2001.

6Interview with Mrs. Lek on 11 July 2001. She is in charge of a rehabilitation center for youngsters at the Duang Prateep Foundation.

7Kaija Korpi, Drug Control and Urban Governance (Bangkok: UNFDAC Regional Center for East Asia and the Pacific, 2001). See http://www.unodc.un.or.th/factsheet/druggovernance.pdf [Oct. 2001].

8Thai Farmers Research Centre (TFRC), “Amphetamines: A Social Hazard Costing the Economy over bt100 Billion”, synthesis of 11 Apr. 2000 on http://www.krc.co.th/. The TFRC team carried out a survey on a sample of 728 workers in the region of Bangkok.

9In Thailand people drink coffee hot or cold. Workers generally take it with milk and lots of sugar.

10See the TFRC (11 April 2000) on the website http://www.krc.co.th/.

11“Synthesized Drugs: A New Challenge for Prevention”, Peddro, no. 1–2 (Feb. 1998): 15–6. (Peddro is a quarterly publication of UNESCO and the European Community.)

12This is a tree belonging to the sub-branch of Gymnosperms and the family of Ginkgoaceae (Ginkgo biloba L). See PLANTS Database, United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service (2001) at http://plants.usda.gov.

13Nualnoi Treerat et al., Global Study on Illegal Drugs, p. 28.

14Thai Farmers Research Centre, 11 Apr. 2000.

15Quoted in “New Amphetamine Epidemic”, Bangkok Post, 16 Mar. 1997.

16Jacques Vincent is the pseudonym of a press correspondent who was then based in Southeast Asia. Interview on 10 July 2001.

17Phongpaichit et al., Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja, p. 102.

18Hervé Berger and Hans van de Glind, Children in Prostitution, Pornography, and Illicit Activities — Thailand, ILO-IPEC, n.p., 1999 (preliminary version).

19Phongpaichit et al., Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja, p. 102.

20“Bernard Antoine” is French. He was born in Vietnam, grew up in Laos, and has a good command of the Thai language. His Asian origins allow him to pass as a genuine Thai. The name is a pseudonym, as the individual concerned preferred to keep his identity secret. Interview on 15 July 2001.

21Sompong Chitradub, “Rapid Assessment of Child Labor in the Production and Trafficking of Drugs in Thailand, Bangkok”, n.p. (1999), in Nualnoi Treerat et al., Global Study on Illegal Drugs, p. 23, preliminary version available at http://www.unodc.un.or.th/material/document/Thailand.pdf.

22Duang Prateep is an association of people united in the fight against AIDS. Interview on 15 July 2001.

23Nualnoi Treerat et al., Global Study on Illegal Drugs, p. 36.

24Susanne McGregor, “Women and the Health and the Social Consequences of Drug Use: Implication for Policy and Practices”, speech given at the Gender Drugs and HIV symposium at Nanning International Hotel, autonomous region of Guangxi, People’s Republic of China, from 22–24 Feb. 2001. Website reference consulted in November 2001 at http://www.undcp.un.or.th/factsheet/woman%20and%20health.pdf, p. 17.

25There are two exceptions to this rule of credit purchase. At the border, when the foreign supplier and the independent traffickers are in contact, transactions apparently require cash. Conversely, when children are used as couriers by the retailers, the credit system can be put into place immediately.

26Interview on 15 July 2001.

27Vincent de Gaulejac, “Les sources de la honte”, in Sociologie clinique (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer 1996), p. 83.

28Robert Castel, Les métamorphoses de la question sociale (Paris: Fayard, 1995).

29“La Crise Thaïlandaise, Fortuite ou Prévisible?”, in Thaïlande contemporaine, ed. Dovert, pp. 345–70. According to author Marie-Sybille de Vienne, between 1996 and 1998, the monetary instability of the yen coincided with a critical phase of the stock market cycle. This disastrous situation caused Thailand’s financial system to implode.

30Supang Chantavanich,“Mouvements de population en Thaïlande”, pp. 249– 73.

31“Les ravages du yaa baa sur les enfants”, L’Humanité [a daily newspaper owned by the French Communist Party], 3 July 1999.

32“Sense about Sex”, The Economist, 8 Feb. 1992, p. 33; “Flower Sellers Bloom”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 July 1993, p.36.

33Berger and van de Glind, Children in Prostitution.

34Ibid.

35Kritaya Archavanitkul, “Trafficking in Children for Labor Exploitation Including Child Prostitution in the Mekong Sub-Region” (Bangkok: ILO-IPEC, 1998b), see http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/ipec/publ/childtraf/index.htm.

36“The ‘Patriotic’ Prostitute”, The Progressive, Feb. 1985, p. 36.

37Feingold, “The Hell of Good Intentions”.

38Quoted in Kritaya Archavanitkul, “Combating the Trafficking in Children and their Exploitation in Prostitution and Other Intolerable Forms of Child Labor in Mekong Basin Countries” (Nakhon Pathom: Mahidol University, 1998a), see http://www.seameo.org/vl/combat/.

39Kritaya Archavanitkul,“Combating the Trafficking in Children”.

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