Bonding through Methamphetamine: Group Dynamics of Thai Youth

6Any discussion of yaa baa’s popularity with young people in Thailand must first begin with a definition of just who should be included in the category “youth”. In accord with the definition given by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, the term “children” generally refers to individuals younger than 18 years, while the term “youth” is less clearly-defined.5 The Council designates in this latter category individuals anywhere from ages 15 to 24. By contrast, the World Health Organisation takes “adolescence”, which covers all individuals from 10 to 19 years of age, as the relevant category. Naturally, it is difficult to base these classifications on clear-cut empirical distinctions since changes across the different stages of life can be gradual or abrupt, depending on the individual.

7Adolescence is a period when a person is confronted with questions of existence. Coinciding with the physical changes of this life stage, an adolescent also struggles to come to terms with the reality of becoming an adult, and therefore of growing older. Faced with serious but unanswerable questions about the meaning of life and death, adolescents often look for solutions outside the home. They may look to adults who are not their own parents, whom the sociologist Patrick Pelège refers to as re-pères (referential fathers) or re-mères (referential mothers). However, it is almost always among peers that an adolescent constructs a future as an adult.6

Peer Group Identification Processes

8Western theories depict the adolescent as a human being who feels the need to seek differentiation from others in order to exist. If being an adult means being on the right side of the law, the European, and North American adolescent tries to break the law. If for older individuals adulthood is the age of reason, then the adolescent tries to be unreasonable.7

9According to the Thai Farmers Research Centre, Thai adolescents are not unaware of this logic, but rather than rebelling, they are more likely to simply want to be different — that is, to have what others do not have, and to attempt to do what others would not try.8 It would be wrong to think that this is individual behaviour; rather, it is a process of collective differentiation. A Thai adolescent is never alone. He is always with a group of friends. It is within a group context, rather than an individual one, that young Thais seek to differentiate themselves from the rest of the world.

10Thai adolescents are seldom motivated to first experiment with methamphetamine because of natural individual curiosity. It is the group context that influences them to try it. Recounts of drug experiences among young users typically begin, “The first time, I was with friends. I wanted to try [it] …”9 For the individual, trying something once does not necessarily mean inevitably progressing to sustained use. A young person who becomes hooked on yaa baa has likely not done so alone, but rather has fallen into a consumption trap in league with his peer group.

11Here, perhaps, is the qualitative explanation for figures that show an exponential increase in the number of young yaa baa consumers in the country during the last decade. We surmise that in Thailand the propensity to imitate others’ behaviour is particularly strong. Every young yaa baa user belongs to a group of friends who also consume the drug. “The group of friends is so important that when one of them does something, the others dare not be different, for fear of displeasing the one who takes the lead. It is a spirit of forced companionship. Great strength is needed to resist the group.”10

12Young drug users exemplify this dependence on a group. An individual group member cannot choose whether or not to partake. Any escape from illicit drug use become closed off very quickly. “In the beginning, I was taking only three or four [tablets] per day”, explains a young woman. “[Alone], if it’s not at hand, I don’t take it. But [in a group], it is very difficult to say “no”. When you are with friends … when they offer it and press it on you … it is very easy to find yourself with a pill.”11

13A former user who is now under the care of an association for treating addiction reports: “I was 12 years old. Family problems and friends forced me to begin taking it.”12 His statement indicates he was not aware of the addictive nature of yaa baa. “I didn’t hesitate because I didn’t know the harmful effects it could have.”

14This ignorance is partly due to the absolute confidence an adolescent has in his friends, especially ones that are older. Out of respect for those older than him, the young user willingly ignores the possible consequences of regular consumption. The seniors are the ones who sell it to their juniors, who are not supposed to worry about the risks involved. Besides, raising doubts about the drug’s beneficial effects might mean jeopardizing ties that bind friends in the group. The group exercises such an overwhelming pressure over its members that “one does not have a choice”, confirms Mr. Suchaat, who is in charge of an association dedicated to social development. “If the group takes it and you are a part of the group, you too have to take it.”13 Using substances taken by the rest of the peer group is necessary for one’s identity formation. Among Thai adolescents, yaa baa is an inevitable component of collective drug-taking practices that allow people to belong to and identify with the group.

Just for Fun?

15A large majority of yaa baa consumers in Thailand are youngsters aged 14 to 25.14 Most are boys, but the methamphetamine phenomenon is less gender-specific than heroin use.15 According to the Office of Narcotics Control Board, young Thai females are becoming increasingly involved in the yaa baa market.16

16Girls sometimes take the drug in groups with other girls and at other times with male peers or boyfriends. If they lack money to buy the substance, some resort to prostitution. According to Mr. Saichon, a social worker, young girls often deliberately choose dealers who will not require them to pay at all for their yaa baa.17

17Regardless of gender, Thai youngsters typically reserve yaa baa consumption for special occasions such as going out with friends or to a disco party. As it enhances physical stamina, the drug is very popular with those who want to dance. “You don’t become tired, so you can stay out all night”, explains a 15-year-old.18

18Girls associate yaa baa with seduction, but it is all about ego as far as young Thai males are concerned. Many believe that yaa baa boosts their competitive energy when they vie with one another in competitive situations. “When we [used to take] yaa baa, we had motorbike races or fights among groups.”19 When different gangs meet, youngsters use yaa baa to pump themselves up before activities such as snooker or motorbike races. (In Bangkok as elsewhere, the two-wheelers are often tampered with to increase acceleration and make a deafening noise.)

19For most users, consuming yaa baa is not an end in itself. Methamphetamine use complements other activities such as meeting one’s friends in cafes, going to fashionable discos, or defying death on two-wheelers. Taking it prior to sports activities gives the necessary “zing”, while using it for watching sports makes for an equally suitable occasion. Pills are exchanged when friends meet to watch a football match on television and root for their favourite British teams. (The Thais are great supporters of Liverpool and Manchester United football clubs.) Thanks to yaa baa, the match will be celebrated in a fitting manner whether it ends in victory or defeat for the team they support.

20Often amphetamine-type stimulants are used in combination with other permitted stimulants, particularly spirits and beer. But whatever the combination of drugs and activities, the single common denominator is that all permutations involve group activities. Yaa baa can therefore be termed as a premier social drug.

Yaa Baa: Unifying Element of an Age Group

21Speaking of his friends, a 14-year-old notes, “They say that with methamphetamine they feel [more] alive, more cool, and that they are more at ease with their friends.”20 “Often, when we take yaa baa, we have fun. Boys go fishing on the bridges of the Chao Praya.21 There they smoke. I take it at home, often with my friend”, explains a young woman, Ms. Koong. She adds, “I like yaa baa because it is stimulating. We are active, we talk, and it’s fun.”22 A project executive at the Duang Prateep Foundation who is a leading observer of the drug scene reports, “They always take it when they are with friends, at the office or at home. There are very few people who take it while they are alone.”23

22People who take drugs in Thailand are likely to be marginalised when they show signs of addiction. Signs of excessive drug-taking may be physical or social.24 A display of irresponsible attitudes and uncoordinated gestures tend to make one suspect. Just as drinking alcohol by oneself elicits disapproval from others, neither do people take kindly to an individual who cultivates a drug habit in solitude.

23However, yaa baa permits one to evade these negative associations. Its consumption does not immediately affect the physical condition of those who take it regularly. Instead, methamphetamine paves the way for users to be further socialised into their peer community. Injecting heroin, an act often done on one’s own, reveals personal and social tensions within an addict; using methamphetamine is the result of youthful curiosity combined with peer-group persuasion, and taking it is generally done for fun. Yaa baa acts as a bond between group members. A drug that is used on such a group serves to symbolise and concretise the friendships that bond its members together.

24In the West, the drugs ganja (also known as cannabis) and ecstasy play a unifying role similar to yaa baa. Each serves to construct community-based relationships. For instance, ganja is shared. Joints are “passed around”, establishing a friendly link between those who give and those who receive them. Smokers thus initiated are protected by an imaginary boundary distinguishing them from the “others”, the uninitiated. Small groups of experienced cannabis users bond with one another as they smoke together. Bonds are further strengthened by individuals’ mutual satisfaction of having overcome a “fear of cops”, whether by direct or vicarious experience, says the sociologist Mélanie Roustan.25

25In contrast with ganja, the drug ecstasy is more accessible to the uninitiated.26 As with yaa baa, ecstasy use is also particular to certain age-groups, but the latter is characterised by its affiliation with individuals from a particular subculture. Youngsters who take ecstasy as part of their rave party experience far outnumber those who share a joint among friends. But ecstasy also carries with it a wealth of social significance. It conveys images of techno music and elaborately coded dress styles, all aspects of a Thai youth subculture derived from a global youth subculture.27 The United Nations Economic and Social Council observes that messages implicitly encouraging the use of drugs are often conveyed by hit song lyrics, films and advertisements, and the behaviour of artists and celebrities.28

26In Thailand yaa baa occupies a place more or less midway between ganja and ecstasy. Like cannabis, it is shared among members of small groups whose bonds are enhanced by consuming it together. The peer circle, with yaa baa as the common factor, defines the limits of the group of intimate friends. On the other hand, unlike cannabis, methamphetamine does not isolate its users from non-consumers. Like ecstasy, it appeals to younger populations regardless of their ethnic or social origins.

27Yaa baa is thus an inherently social drug that binds young users together without excluding them from others in their age group. Like ecstasy, it is meant to be taken in public places where it symbolises “fusion”, the common denominator of identity-making processes of an entire generation. Drugs can exert a unifying influence similar to the cohesiveness that comes from socialising together in fashionable places. During an earlier period when Bangkok’s night-time entertainment was still free from regulation, young members of Bangkok’s middle class frequented “with-it” discos in large numbers. They preferred Royal City Avenue (RCA), an entertainment district known for its discos opening out onto the street that offered free entry and affordable prices to members. Since July 2001, however, access to discos has been regulated. The minimum age is 20 years and closing hours are fixed.

28The fight against illicit drugs and anti-social behaviour figures prominently in measures taken by the government of the current Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. However, similar to ecstasy users, young yaa baa consumers do not consider themselves to be delinquents or addicts. Within the youth subculture, methamphetamine is positioned as an affirmative component of ritualised celebrations. As many young Thais use methamphetamine only occasionally, they have an impression of “being in control”, as opposed to being drug-dependent or running the risk of addiction.29

29Today it is evident that youth in industrialised countries are no longer the only ones who have developed their own subcultures centred on drug use. Just as with ecstasy in the United States and Europe, certain populations in Southeast Asia share convictions and values that serve to legitimise the consumption of yaa baa from their viewpoint. Any consideration of the lifestyle of contemporary Thailand’s urban youth must acknowledge a great similarity to behaviour patterns observed in the West. Young Thais have access to a nightlife culture of the same international standards as in New York, Paris, London or Sydney.

30The success of the Hard Rock Café restaurant chain beyond the boundaries of the U.S. and Europe marks the globalisation of a musical culture. As in the West, the spread of “techno” music and dress styles related to the symbolic world of this consumerist subculture parallels the increasing use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS). However, adoption of this so-called universal style continues to meet with legal and cultural obstacles at the local level. In Thailand, rave parties are tolerated only on certain islands reserved almost exclusively for Western tourists, especially Ko Pha-Ngan or Ko Tao. Elsewhere in Thailand, it is still impossible to imagine a large-scale event or show at which obvious drug-taking would be condoned.

31Lacking the sub-cultural tradition of rave parties, Thais do not exclusively associate drug-taking with the “techno” musical culture to the extent that their Western counterparts do. In a sense this disjuncture helps to insulate young Thais from the worst excesses of yaa baa abuse. When a subculture is too explicitly structured around a drug, its members tend to minimise — if not completely ignore — its secondary effects. However, risk factors in Thailand are still numerous. “Pals” are very important, and youngsters often move in groups. Everywhere there are cultural signals that equate certain types of drug use with wealth, fashion, and success. This can make ATS become attractive rather than frightening in young people’s eyes, as studies have confirmed.

A Ritualised Consumption

32In Thailand, methamphetamine may be consumed in the following ways:

33Swallowing: This is the conventional form of administration practiced by villagers and truck drivers.

34Smoking: Accomplished by reducing the tablet to powder so that it can be rolled into a cigarette.

35Sniffing: The drug is first reduced to powder, then ignited and the smoke inhaled through a straw. This is the most popular method among students and younger consumers, who refer to it as “capturing the dragon”.

36Dissolving in water and then injecting intravenously: Generally people employing this method add heroin or sedatives to the substance. People who are very addicted to psychotropic drugs combine amphetamine with heroin or tranquillisers and inject themselves with this mixture. The effect is immediate, whereas a tablet needs 20 minutes to take effect.30

37Yaa baa tablets can also be dissolved in soft drinks, and the mixture is then consumed like an ordinary beverage. This is undoubtedly the most discreet method, especially in public places like discos where there can be a significant police presence.31

38Confirming the decline of heroin and emergence of ATS in Thailand, the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board observes that methods of administering the drugs are constantly evolving. Receding numbers of users sniff or inject drugs, while techniques of ingesting orally or, in particular, inhaling fumes from the powdered substance that has been set alight, are on the increase.32 Even if yaa baa can be dissolved and injected or drunk, or simply swallowed, the most popular method of consumption among pleasure-seeking young people is to inhale the fumes.33 Injection seems to have become almost the exclusive privilege of those who consume heroin along with yaa baa.34

39In Thai schools, yaa baa consumption has become something of a collective ritual. Most student users share it with others to reduce costs. They may take it in the toilets in the morning before the flag is raised or between classes, during lunch breaks, or after school in isolated places or on the roofs of school buildings.35 Once by themselves, group members start their small ceremony. Typically yaa baa is passed around within groups of three to five. The pills are first reduced to a powder that is placed on a piece of aluminium foil shaped into a spoon or a small boat.36 This is heated from underneath with a lighter, and the smoke is inhaled through a plastic straw or alternatively, a cigarette paper straw. Users inhale the smoke through the nose or mouth.37

40According to Jirapan Tritipjaras of the Centre for the Prevention and Correction of Drug and Aids Problems under the Ministry of Education, once students have acquired the skills and possess the necessary materials to start their “cooking session”, the ritual takes very little time — some three to five minutes.

Drug or Medicine: [En]snared by Representations

41The drug yaa baa was previously known as yaa maa in Thailand. Authorities renamed it in 1996 to discourage its popularity among peasants, who were then its primary users. According to government spokesman Somsak Prisanananthakul, the wording yaa maa (literally, “medicine horse”) led people to believe that it was a simple tonic that enabled one to “work like a horse”.

42Peasants turned to yaa baa following an established practice of taking analgesics containing caffeine as stimulants. Amphetamine consumption first spread among those who cut sugarcane or harvested latex from rubber trees. The changeover began after the sale of analgesics was banned by the Health Ministry.38

43In contrast with Thai peasants, young people who currently use yaa baa in Thailand are under no misunderstanding that what they take is anything but a psychotropic product. However, the idea that this drug is less dangerous than other products is prevalent. According to Thomas Bellais and Jefferson Derolin, synthetic drug users typically experience some confusion over whether they are ingesting a drug or a type of medicine.39 This is one major reason why psychotropic products are so popular. Novice consumers are not restrained by any psychological barriers and take naturally to this new type of drug.

44As yaa baa is available in tablet form, it adheres to the conventional and symbolic regulation of products beneficial for health. The chemically-synthesised tablets resemble something medicinal and therefore “safe”. Disguised as medicine, methamphetamine tablets are free of the stigma attached to other addictive substances. The tablets bear a pharmaceutical stamp and label attesting to their origins in chemical synthesis and laboratory research. Young consumers thus consider them to be modern and therefore trustworthy products. At the very least, the familiar imprinted tablet form of yaa baa evokes a sense of safety and reassurance.

45Young people’s views comparing methods of ingesting yaa baa are particularly revealing. They reflect an actual experience coupled with an imaginary one that is rich and at times paradoxical. Even if the swallowed tablet produces less potent results than those of other methods, consuming the drug in this manner is believed to be more toxic than alternative methods of ingestion. “Yaa baa can be swallowed, but taken in fumes it is better [because] it is less serious, as nothing enters the body. It is worse to take it orally”, says Ms. Koong, a young consumer.40

46In accordance with the principle of incorporation put forward by Claude Fischler, we become what we eat, whether on a real or imaginary level.41 The act of “consuming” food, in the broad sense of the word, crosses the line between the world and our body, between the outside and the inside. Thus eating carries a risk in itself. Inhalation is also a passage from the external to the internal world, but only symbolically, because inhaled air is exhaled and so signifies a lesser risk.

47As previously noted, in 1997 the Office of Narcotics Control Board (OCNB) had already listed 90 available types of yaa baa tablets; since then, many more have likely been added to the list. Available most often in an orange-brown colour but also in white, green, red, blue, these pills have slightly different compositions depending on the laboratories from which they come. There is no guarantee that two of the same type of tablets, made at different times from the same laboratory, will have exactly the same composition. Users, however, place their trust in familiar colours or markings.

48In general, orange-coloured pills are thought to be the most powerful.42 The symbol “WY” is also taken as a sign of quality.43 In 1997, the ONCB collected 301 yaa baa samples from 50 provinces, and found 27 different colours and 20 different markings. Common knowledge holds that green pills are usually best. The green ones have different names such as khiaw morakot (emerald green), khiaw pak thung (dustbin-liner green), maa morakot (emerald horse), or marutayu see khiaw (satanic green). Some tablets are tasteless while others taste repulsive. Some are good to inhale while others are better to inject because of their complete solubility. Yet still other types are preferably inhaled or smoked. Within each category, some types of tablet are thought to be more “powerful” than others.44

49The main effect of yaa baa, like most stimulants, is to increase energy levels and physical endurance. Consumers confirm the reality of these effects. The National Commission for Primary Education reports that students interviewed who took yaa baa and tried to stay awake all night succeeded in doing so.45 But this increase in physical stamina makes sense only if it is understood in the context of cultural norms that prevail among young Thais. They love to party together and have fun. Correspondingly, yaa baa is welcomed as an asset that can extend the life of the party to the wee hours. Nightlife lends “fresh enchantment” to daytime. “We feel our heart beating. It stimulates the brain and everything else is forgotten. We are happy and that helps to forget. We don’t sleep any more”, explains a young user.46

50Moreover, students use yaa baa to stimulate their minds. As school-leaving and entrance examinations for university near, competition becomes very stiff. Unable to face the pressures “alone”, students take to stimulants, without which they believe they would fail. Hence in Thailand, stimulant use levels rise with the approach of final examinations.47 According to student users, methamphetamine serves to increase their mental concentration and thus their ability to study.

51Says one student, “Yaa baa is not all that different from cigarettes, except that if you smoke amphetamine, you become hardworking, whereas if you smoke cigarettes you feel exhausted.”48 While Nat was reading architecture, his friends explained that yaa baa could help him concentrate. They said, “There is no risk, it will help you draw better.” So, quite naturally, he took it.49

52The preceding comments demonstrate that yaa baa elicits positive associations among social users of psychotropic drugs, who tend to underestimate the dangers.50 “I don’t worry about yaa baa but I worry about heroin or hashish. Moreover, I know my limits”, says a young girl.51 The fact that she feels no ill effects leads her to think that she is invincible. At times, she smokes three or four ground tablets per day. “My yaa baa consumption is not serious, because I can do without it. For me it is nothing. I am not sick.” The anthropologist Jirapan Tritipjaras, who completed a thesis on consumption of yaa baa in a Thai school, confirms that methamphetamine has a surprisingly positive image among the students there, whether or not they use it themselves.52

53Yaa baa seems to enhance users’ sense of generalised understanding and empathy. It boosts their self-confidence and helps them shed their inhibitions. Consequently young girls going through an awkward stage of life may use the drug to try to regain some self-esteem about their body, in part because methamphetamine kills the appetite and thus functions as a diet aid. A 15-year-old girl thinks that “it helps her slim down”. Another girl says she doesn’t take it for that reason but has friends who did so. However, she acknowledges that “it wasn’t bad to slim down [as she herself] went down from 90 to 60 kilograms because of yaa baa”.53 Alternatively, males tend to consider yaa baa as an aphrodisiac and sexual stimulant. Young men who are in relationships and who take yaa baa report feeling more confident about physical relations with their partners. Says one 18-year-old, “My friends say that it lets them enjoy sex and the sex lasts a longer time.”54

54Where sports are concerned, yaa baa also comes into play. Young people who train for hours on football grounds or takrao fields do not hesitate to use it to overcome fatigue and boost energy levels.55 The same is true for motorcyclists, who take it before street-racing in Bangkok, or those who play snooker, who frequent parlours well-stocked with the drug.56

55The general perception of amphetamine-type stimulants among the young in Thailand is that they are an all-round remedy. “Smoking [methamphetamine] allows you to forget your pain. It makes you feel good”, explains a 16-year-old student.57 Jirapan Tritipjaras observes that if a young person has lost his energy or his curiosity, or is bored or suffering, the solution is very often to take yaa baa. In short, according to Mr. Suchaat, a social worker, the young feel that yaa baa helps them manage their problems.58 Today, it is part and parcel of a lifestyle. The drug allows students to study for long hours and then go to discos. Young people find life more amusing under the influence of yaa baa, and, at least for the short-term, think it is good for them. So they take it without being perturbed about its long-term effects.

56Nevertheless, these representations need to be modified in accord with the social realities of how yaa baa is actually used. Many of the drug’s effects are difficult to identify, even by users themselves. One might take methamphetamine several times during a party in addition to doses taken before or afterwards. As a result, it is difficult to distinguish the effects of the drug from those generated by the ambience or other stimulating caffeine drinks or alcohol. Additionally, the use of yaa baa is also closely correlated with cigarette-smoking.

Methamphetamine in Thailand: Not All That New

57We have already noted that Thai peasants, the original users of yaa maa, tend to have a certain detachment towards it and treat the drug as an ordinary stimulant. Ms. Koong, whose parents are in Isan in the northeast of the country, says that her father “just told her not to take too much of it, to go slow and to be careful”.59 The notion that yaa baa in itself is not bad has been transmitted by the pioneer users to the next generation, who willingly take to it. According to Bernard Antoine, the consumption of ganja (one of the vernacular names of cannabis) was unregulated 30 years ago, when no one considered it a drug.60 The idea that foreign substances can enhance bodily strength or stamina is nothing new for ordinary Thais. Youngsters refuse to admit the risk of methamphetamine addiction; yaa baa does not trouble them. Why should they be afraid? Haven’t peasants, drivers, and workers consumed it for years? Anything so familiar cannot be very dangerous. Added to this is evidence of veteran yaa baa users who have apparently suffered no ill effects.

On a wall behind a moto-taxi stand in their locality, Nat and one of his friends observed graffiti “Yaa baa sold here”. Nat decided to check it out. The wall overlooked a poultry slaughterhouse where the workers were provided amphetamine pills. They worked very late so that fresh chicken could be delivered in the early hours of the morning. Seeing their unfamiliar faces, the dealer approached them. He sold them three tablets at 55 baht each (around 1.4 euros). The normal price was only 30 to 40 baht each but they paid more because they were newcomers.
Cabrera Jaime and Vanaspong Chitraporn, “Confessions of a Young Yaa Baa Addict”, Bangkok Post, 16 March 1997

58Nat’s statement is telling it shows that there is no real difference between the drug “for workers” and “for youth”. Reassured by the fact that their elders also consume it, younger people today use it with few if any misgivings.

59Nevertheless, these widespread impressions suffer from two limitations. First, older users of amphetamine, especially peasants and drivers, appear to have been quite moderate in their consumption. The earlier practice was to divide the tablet into portions so as to take just enough to finish the work. Bernard Antoine recalls the 1970s when “workers using yaa baa did not take more than half a tablet and worked more than six hours continuously”. Second, on account of the product’s very nature, the risks taken by truck drivers with amphetamine in earlier times are small compared with those faced by young people today who take methamphetamine, which is a more potent psychotropic drug.

Counter-productive Prevention Policies

60As part of its primary drug abuse prevention policy, the ONCB has printed anti-drug posters and put them up in the vicinity of shantytowns all over Thailand. The goal of such posters can be summarised in just two words: promote fear. A severed hand cautions workers against using yaa baa in the workplace. A torn family photo warns the young that a drug habit might cause them to break off ties with their family members. A handcuffed and shackled adolescent gives insight into the conditions of life in prison for users who have been arrested. A picture of a child being strangled drives home the fact that yaa baa can cause one to go insane. A deadly cobra or a skull is superimposed upon a photograph of pills. The slogans are equally alarming. “Yaa baa’s effects are poisonous”, “Yaa baa — death for nothing”, “Hundreds of consumers, thousands of families suffering”, as well as “Yaa baa — a danger of death”.61

61Provincial village authorities endorse strong anti-drug messages that target the young, but by and large such frightening messages fail to achieve the desired results. Drug prevention campaigns generally do not attain their objectives. The strategy aiming to scare off “hoodlums and minor delinquents” has failed, acknowledges Mrs. Pim, who heads the department of the OCNB that creates media messages about drug abuse prevention.62

62According to one young female user, “The posters for prevention are not frightening”.63 On the contrary, they offer a sense of reassurance to this young woman who perceives herself to be “far from that situation” — that is, from the stage of addiction where she might take life-threatening risks or feel in danger. She knows “very well that [her] boyfriend who takes more [than she does] is also not so far gone”. When the effects that people actually experience from taking yaa baa bear little resemblance to the publicised effects of such psychotropic drugs, anti-drug messages lose their credibility. A young consumer explains that he “saw posters that described yaa baa as bad for health and dangerous for the body”, but as he had already experimented with it, he felt “that it was false [because he] knew that it made him happy. So [he] continued” to use it.64

63The Thai Farmers Research Centre confirms that it is common in Thailand to exaggerate the risks in order to discourage consumers from taking illicit products. The danger here is that such messages can undermine the credibility of the authorities or sponsoring organisations involved, as consumers themselves know the actual effects of yaa baa.65 Another perverse result is that these alarmist campaigns tend to further stigmatise individuals who are already addicts. While the over-dramatised messages of the chosen prevention policy paradoxically serve to reassure regular yaa baa consumers, they nevertheless cultivate fear among all sectors of the population that do not use the drug. “The people of Thailand have really been afraid the last three years. The government and the authorities are scared. There is fear at the street level too. It is enough to read the newspapers that report atrocities caused by taking yaa baa. They are afraid of the syndrome of a ‘sacrificed generation’ just like the one caused by the AIDS epidemic”, says Jacques Vincent, the Southeast Asian correspondent of an international press agency.66

64Sometimes the police do arrest young users. The individual is then taken to a civil or military treatment centre where he will undergo a rehabilitation programme designated as secondary if he only “deserves” a moral lecture and tertiary if he requires medical assistance. These rehabilitation programmes focus on socialisation and education. Even if such programs have beneficial results for some young people, they are not exempt from undesirable effects. According to Jirapan Tritipjaras, rehabilitation centres require people with very different drug use histories and patterns to live together in close proximity, which can be quite harmful to the mental balance of certain users. Some individuals are addicts while others are only occasional users. Some have been hooked on heroin for a long time while others have tried only marijuana. Treatment centres tend to become places where individuals build connections with one another that can lead to future involvement with drug trafficking networks.

An End of Addiction Story

65Before starting on yaa baa, some youngsters have already experienced other addictive substances that prepare them for new products. By definition — on account of their age — their experience is limited. Generally they start with cigarettes and cannabis and then proceed to methamphetamine, notes Mrs. Lek, who is in charge of a rehabilitation centre for young people.67

I am the youngest of a family of seven. I finished primary school at Muang School at Pai Nathong and then I started my secondary schooling at Pattana Witthaya School, also at Pai Nathong.68 At high school, my life changed because I started smoking cigarettes in my first year and then cannabis in the second year. In the second quarter, I came to know about yaa baa and I started taking it.
Statement of a young boy published on website of United Nations Drug Control Programme, Regional Centre for Southeast Asia, http://www.undcp.un.or.th/

66Regular yaa baa users may have had prior experiences with other drugs, sometimes for short periods only. It was in the second year of high school that Nat tried marijuana secretly “just to have fun” because his friends had been talking about it. “I didn’t really like it”, he says, but he became a smoker anyway. “I only smoke occasionally”, he told himself. After high school, he went on to accountancy school. During that time, he met up with a cousin who used methamphetamine himself but did not allow Nat to try it.69

67Nat finally did manage to get some yaa baa. Others made it their business to supply it to him. Individuals who use cigarettes and cannabis can become dissatisfied and reject them as too common. Surprisingly, yaa baa is often taken not in addition to cigarettes or cannabis, but as a substitute for them.

68“At first, we started with ganja. Well, that wasn’t habit forming — no risk!” says a young female consumer. Yaa baa provided her with far more stimulation while increasing her sense of risk-taking. The moderate effects of cigarettes and cannabis can function as a launching pad to yaa baa. Their effects help socialize the user into the early stages of drug consumption, but are not sufficiently potent for the process to be judged satisfying. More moderate substances can therefore pave the way for an eventual shift to yaa baa.

69Here is the main paradox of methamphetamine consumption. First of all, yaa baa “veterans” tend to downplay its effects. For them, yaa baa (or yaa maa) is not a new product, but one already long-known and considered nothing more than a simple “energiser”. This representation is also generally shared by young urban consumers who, as previously noted, tend to underplay the potential negative effects of taking yaa baa. While for some the drug evokes the attractive risk of forbidden fruit, it nevertheless does so without seeming to pose any great danger. The “innocuous” view of the drug allows users to indulge in it almost guilt-free.

70At the same time, however, drug abuse prevention campaigns of the ONCB serve to demonise the product and invest it with danger. And danger proves to be another magnet of attraction for young people in Thailand, whose peer groups are especially cohesive social entities.

Dependence on the Substance and the Dealer

71School-going yaa baa users who evolve into illicit drug retailers first induce others to become their clients by giving them free trials of the product, then later lead them into addiction. A 17-year-old student explains to Jirapan Tritipjaras that he started using the drug when his friends brought it to his home. One day when he lacked money to repay a debt, one of his friends suggested that he sell methamphetamine. “He suggested that I use some and sell the rest to other students. That’s what I did and that fetched quite some money. I realised that I could hide the pills underneath my clothes and on arriving very early, I could easily smuggle them into school.” He adds that he paid around 70 baht for each tablet (1.75 euros). On a typical day he would sell seven tablets at 100 to 200 baht each, thus making a profit of 300 to 400 baht. On good days he could sell up to 30 pills.70

72Generally an adolescent enters the vicious circle of drug use and drug dealing when he cannot control his own habit anymore. Very often this leads to loss of financial control. The dealers offer a neophyte his first tablets; once hooked, they offer him credit. Unable to honour the debts thus contracted, the novice user is caught in a financial trap that he can only exit by entering the dealer circuit himself.

73Like other illegal products, patterns of methamphetamine use and dealing can create dangerously escalating situations, especially in environments such as schools. It pushes every new consumer to become a dealer and thus increases the demand, which naturally sets off a chain reaction. The easy money earned by dealers enables them to finance their own consumption, and the rest is often wasted on gambling, petty entertainment, or ostentatious consumption.

Without his being aware of it, the trap began to close behind Nat. Playing truant from school, he spent his time figuring out how he could get hold of his daily quota of yaa baa and the greater part of his day in the company of other consumers. His family found out that he no longer attended classes. To escape official checks, he went from apartment to apartment, spending one day with one friend, another day with another. Slowly Nat’s social circle restricted itself to those whom he befriended to get a supply of methamphetamine.
The police arrested him while he was in the company of a dealer, though he did not have a single pill on himself. Nevertheless, he was forced to sign a statement to the contrary. The door had closed once and for all behind Nat. In his own eyes and his family’s eyes, he was no longer a student. He now had a different face, that of a drug addict.
Cabrera Jaime and Vanaspong Chitraporn, “Confessions of a Young Yaa baa Addict”, Bangkok Post, 16 March 1997

74Often relationships based on trust form between different intermediaries in the yaa baa marketing chain. The dealer does not see a competitor in the customer whom he initiates into the trade. He will convince the new consumer to become a dealer in his own right, but one at a lower level than himself in the marketing chain. He can reasonably assume that this change will only end up increasing his — the original dealer’s — own earnings.

The retailer at the poultry slaughter-house began to trust Nat and permitted him to take more tablets. Nat could make a profit of 20 baht (around 59 euro cents) on each pill that he could sell at 70 baht. In addition, he received free tablets for his personal consumption. Most of his customers were adolescents who had already tried it. He learnt from other dealers how to act in total safety. He started selling methamphetamine tablets in the evenings to drivers who were waiting to deliver chicken at the market. He hid his reserves in a truck tyre. His income varied from 3,000 to 5,000 baht per week depending upon the number of dealers and the type of pills that he sold.
Cabrera Jaime and Vanaspong Chitraporn, “Confessions of a Young Yaa baa Addict”, Bangkok Post, 16 March 1997

75As with other psychotropic products, regular yaa baa use finally led young Nat into a state of general addiction. As the methamphetamine effects diminished he felt weak and exhausted, and took more. He quit school because he was no longer interested in anything but his quest for selling and using the drug. At this stage, the consumer has lost control over his consumption. He can no longer do without yaa baa and suffers from a sense of deprivation when he cannot get it.

76Ms. Koong’s boyfriend is also a yaa baa consumer. In his family’s opinion, he is already in a vicious circle from which he cannot extricate himself without help. Ms. Koong and her stepfather advised him to meet with a social worker. According to Ms. Koong, he was taking at least ten pills a day, sometimes perhaps as many as 20. Given the prolonged effect of a tablet, estimated at four to six hours depending on the method of absorption, it is highly probable that Ms. Koong’s friend is in a state of permanent medication and hence addiction.71

Appearance of Secondary Effects

77We often speak about the risk-taking behaviour of adolescents. To a sociologist, there is no a priori difference between “normal” and “pathological” behaviour. Actions are loaded with socially-generated meanings, yet are still rooted in the actor’s own individuality.72 The clinical and hypothesised effects of given actions are thus distinguished from the actual and imagined effects as they are experienced or felt. Thus, the voices of the young users themselves constitute a valuable interpretive element of the “social fact” of which they are a part.

78Unprompted accounts by users about the secondary effects of yaa baa are rare. This is because methamphetamine, admittedly a “drug”, is able to pass off as a “miracle pill” free of any undesirable effects. Student users maintain this myth. They grudgingly acknowledge the drug’s more toxic effects only after interview questions have been rephrased to elicit information on items such as yaa baa’s “harm to the body” after long-term use.

79As part of his research on methamphetamine use, Jirapan Tritipjaras interviewed a scrawny young boy who admitted, “My arms and legs have become thin. It hurts when I move. If you don’t take it, you have no energy but only pains and cramps.” “We give the impression that we are emaciated”, says a young woman.73 “Look at me, aren’t I ugly? It is lousy to have to stand like this, to be stared at by people, to know that they will always have a shocking image of us.” The woman, a physically weak habitual user, says she is “always afraid that people will hurt me”.

80An individual in an advanced state of dependency on the drug can also develop paranoid tendencies, seeing himself as a victim or a scapegoat. Even the slightest physical contact may be perceived as aggressive. Yaa baa consumption also leads to sudden and unexpected mood swings. Wavering between choices about what to do with his life, Nat decided to change course and study architecture. Being admittedly suspicious, his aunt had difficulty in understanding his sudden change of mind. Nat had promised her in all sincerity, that he would “stop the business”. But the next day he went out to meet his old friends who owed him money and finally “took the plunge” all over again.74

81Adds an 18-year-old student: “You become irritable more easily than before.”75 “My nature changed, I became angry very easily and was hot-blooded”, confesses a young girl being treated at the Niwattana New Life Project. Says another, “The first time I wanted to stop yaa baa along with my boyfriend, we could not help quarrelling whenever we had a problem. So we started taking it again.”76 In certain cases, abuse of yaa baa can lead to violence. Some users “behave like mad people when they are told something they do not agree with”, says a 17-year-old student describing his friends.77

It had become serious. I was taking ten pills per day and I wanted to have more and more. I continued this dose for two months. But I started developing a fear of everything and everybody. I was becoming paranoid. Once, I didn’t sleep for four days and finally when I slept, nothing or nobody could wake me up. As I did not respond when my name was called out, my mother and aunt became frightened. My mother took a stick and began to hit me. And only then I woke up with a start. Seeing that I was being beaten up, I ran into the kitchen, got hold of a knife, and wanted to kill my mother. Luckily, my cousin who was around prevented me. It was not difficult because I had become thin and weak. They took me to a hospital to be given a sedative.
Interview with Mr. Boonsen, a former user treated by the Duang Prateep Foundation, on 11 July 2001

82It is not by chance that the drug has earned the nickname “madness pill”. Nevertheless, methamphetamine-induced behavioural crises are atypical. Such episodes arise only among users who are hypersensitive or in an advanced state of drug abuse; among those who combine the drug with other psychotropic substances such as alcohol or heroin; or among users who use severe methods of self-administering the drug. Generally, it is users who inject themselves with yaa baa more than once or twice a day that are the ones prone to develop psychosis and truly violent behaviour.78 These incidents, though rare, are over-publicised by the media when they do occur. This is not only because the public laps up such news, but also because reports about yaa baa’s violent side-effects are in synergy with the government’s policy of projecting it as a diabolical drug.

Stigmatisation, or the Beginning of Ostracism

83Statements in which users admit to experiencing true yaa baa deprivation are rare. This is explained by the shameful character accorded to this state, which is condemned in Thailand, as elsewhere.79 An individual’s deficiencies and “abnormalities” are often deemed the outcome of actions he himself has committed, or those of his family or peers. Naturally this perception justifies how the individual is consequently treated.

84Such is the case with all those who are labelled “addicts” in Thailand. The addict archetype is the heroin consumer whose “pathological” behaviour is more individualistic than social, more sick-inducing than recreational, more habitual than occasional, and more compelled than voluntary. But significant methamphetamine abuse also leads to indisputable patterns of addiction whose signs become visible over the long run.

85As discussed earlier, the occasional use of yaa baa has long been socially sanctioned in Thai society. Society does not condemn the peasant, worker, or truck driver who is a typical methamphetamine user because taking the drug allows him to increase his household income. But the moment he loses control over himself — as when he experiences hallucinations or displays telling signs of abuse such as puncture marks or weight loss — he is subject to collective disapproval, and isolated as someone who does not conform to socially acceptable norms.80 And, given that those who consume large quantities of the drug are rapidly forced to enter dealer circuits, they become recipients of an even more derogatory status. Thus deemed “traffickers”, these individuals are subject to intense discrimination.

86Bernard Antoine observes that in Thailand a drug addict is considered “dirty”,81 “… so he is somewhat despised. Of course he is pitied, but most of all, he is despised”. Dealers are held in even greater contempt. “All the people in the neighbourhood know that we sell yaa baa”, states Ms. Koong, whose friend is also a dealer.82 Although there are dealers who have the necessary police protection and hence are not troubled by the stigma, they cannot lead a completely normal life either. They lack the respect accorded to other livelihoods that are above the law. “I feel that people look at us askance, that they are scared of us”, concludes Ms. Koong.

87According to the sociologist Vincent de Gaulejac, the sense of shame experienced by the drug user is an essential tool of social control. It constitutes the victim’s logical response to condemnation. All people try to reduce the gap between their prescribed identity, their desired identity, and their acquired identity. It is the need to be recognised by the community that is the key element in the sense of shame, and it is this shame that prevents the subject from cutting himself off from the norms and values that establish the social contract.83

88But the subjective sense of shame may vary according to the status of the individual being shamed. The “shame of being a drug-addict” can be much more devastating than the “shame of being poor”, as noted earlier, because the addict can be reproached as responsible for his condition. Worse yet, while yaa baa allows the user to shed his inhibitions while under the effect of methamphetamine, the shame experienced by an abusive user only increases his inhibitions and cultural difficulties with self-expression and communication. He may compensate by increasing his yaa baa consumption, precisely to avoid feeling ashamed of being so dependent on the drug. Thus he finds himself in an inextricable double bind in which the drug is used to allay the sense of shame it engendered in the first place.84

89Ms. Koong wishes she could stop taking yaa baa because she knows the risks involved. She had begun to seek the help of a social worker whom we met in her company. There are puncture marks on her arms where the veins are prominent that are the physical stigma of a “drug addict”. She also carries the social stigma of shame. Unable to look at us directly, she turns her face away while she speaks. When we address her, she looks down. Of course, in Southeast Asia this body language is typical of someone who thinks of herself as inferior, and might also be interpreted as a mark of respect to a farang.85 But these explanations become less convincing when we note that she continued to address our interpreter directly. We could sense her embarrassment and general lack of self-esteem.

90The shame of being a drug-addict not only affects the abusive user; it noticeably involves the rest of his family as well. While meeting with family of an addict, Mr. Saichon, a social worker, carefully tries to “save face” on behalf of the father86 who was ashamed of having an “addicted” child.87 According to Nucharat Kanchanaroj, who directs the “treatment” section of the Office of Narcotics Control Board, many parents cannot acknowledge or accept the fact that their children are addicts.88 When they do, they feel helpless.

91Researchers at the Thai Farmers Research Centre who study the social consequences of yaa baa addiction note that the responses of some family members to the situation almost border on the Manichean.89 Parents may perceive the drug as “disgusting” and wish to disown any of their children who take it. “I had friends and a family who liked me a lot and who were a great comfort to me. But when they came to know that I was taking drugs, their attitude towards me changed, they stopped showing any interest in me and they did not love me as before. In their eyes I had become a foreigner, a suspect.”90 This young girl’s account shows the family’s need to distance itself from the drug addict by reproof and condemnation, so as not to be associated with his deviant behaviour. Thus very often the compassion that an addict needs so crucially is reduced to that from a handful of social workers and a few friends whom the sociologist Erving Goffman describes as “confidantes”. They are different from “ordinary people” in that they likely experience a lesser phobia of the stigma against both drug dependence, and association with drug addicts.

92Whether as a habitual user or a dealer, every day the addict becomes increasingly separated from human relationships that are the hallmark of normal life. Social pressures stigmatise him as someone different, an outcast. He has few alternatives other than to be content to live in seclusion and associate with only those who distribute and deal the drug.