Thailand War on Drugs | Support for drug war shows alarming ignorance
by Richard Sproat
Reply by DAVID BARKDULL
Re: “Drug policy ignores causes of addiction”, News, March 12.
by Richard Sproat
Your leader on the “war on drugs” (2003-4) made depressing reading and raised difficult questions about the responsibility of ordinary Thais. It is sobering to remember how popular the “war” was – in a Suan Dusit survey in 2003 in 76 provinces, 75 per cent of respondents fully supported Thaksin’s stand on drugs.
There is no doubt that the issue of drug addiction brings on moral panic in many people, who when faced with an intractable and corroding problem that touches their lives, resort to “nuke-em” solutions. But drug addiction is complex and even paradoxical. I remember years ago being told by an addiction psychologist that heroin, while quite addictive (though less so than tobacco) was not physically very harmful. And I remember reading how in the 1980s adulterated heroin (perhaps 1 per cent purity) could not in any way be described as addictive or even remotely narcotic. I feel – unpopular though it is to say it – that methamphetamine in Thailand has been given a very bad press. It is quite closely related to Ecstasy, which is widely used (though illegal) in the UK. In an echo of the comment above on heroin, E was recently described by the British Medical Research Council as physically less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. There are a handful of deaths a year in the UK, mostly in dehydrated ravers. In Britain, E is a designer drug for prosperous young people, yet in Thailand the image of yaa baa is one of despair.
The difference is that in Thailand those who get addicted are the losers – the school drop-outs, the ones whose parents don’t care, the poor, the petty criminals. But when they kill themselves or others, or sell drugs to make a living, it is not the drug to blame but the social conditions they survive in.
And there is one other enormous difference between the UK and Thailand which may throw light on the public support for Thaksin’s drug war. In Britain the murder rate is 1 per 1 million people per year; in Thailand the rate is 80. In other words, Thailand is already awash with killings.
Richard Sproat
Bangkok
From: David Barkdull
Subject: Letters to the Editor
Re: Support for drug war shows alarming ignorance, Letters, March 14.
Richard Sproat’s simplistic view of drug addiction and Thailand’s War on Drugs is quite disturbing. For the record, I was intimately involved in the worldwide “war” for decades and either the War on Drugs continues or it has been lost depending on who you ask. To say ecstasy (MDMA) is like amphetamines (yaa baa) is reckless at best. There is no recreational dose of ecstasy and there will be some amount of brain damage with the first dose. Mr. Sproat also downplays the potential damage of heroin addiction by comparing it to being hooked on cigarettes. There is a strong physical addiction to each however describing nicotine and heroin as “not physically very harmful” is ludicrous. Saying, “ methamphetamine in Thailand has been given a very bad press” is just plain irresponsible.
Thailand’s War on Drugs in 2003 was very popular with the uninformed. It appears that many of those killed were the victims of extra-judicial murders. All of the facts have yet to be revealed and we probably will never know the entire tale. To put forward the idea that ordinary Thais supported these extra-judicial killings is just not true and insults every citizen in the Kingdom.
David Barkdull
Thailand War on Drugs | Support for drug war shows alarming ignorance
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