Pubdate: Sat, 10 Mar 2001
Source: Agence France-Presses
Copyright: AFP 2001

THAI PM THAKSIN DECLARES WAR ON DRUGS

CHIANG RAI, Thailand, March 10 (AFP) - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin 
Shinawatra declared a "war on drugs" at a meeting of top security officials 
Saturday at this northern town on the edge of the fabled Golden Triangle.

"The drugs problem is severe, which is why we have to declare war on it. We 
cannot just work from day to day, we have to find a common strategy," he 
said in an opening address to some 80 senior ministers and officials.

As the two-day brainstorming session began, Thaksin likened himself to the 
"conductor of an orchestra, trying to find harmony in the fight against 
drugs so we can win the war for the people of our nation."

The meeting in the strategic northernmost border province with Myanmar is 
being held under tight security, after Saturday's bomb attack on a Thai 
Airways jetliner Thaksin and his son were due to board.

The hotel venue was crawling with police officers and dog handlers and 
reporters covering the talks were closely screened. Thaksin, travelling 
with a large security entourage, flew into Chiang Rai on an air force jet.

The premier highlighted the seriousness of the drugs crisis, which is 
estimated to afflict six percent of Thailand's population of 62 million, 
and vowed to tighten laws against trafficking.

"At the moment the penalties are not very severe so traffickers are likely 
to take risks," he said.

Top narcotics officials told AFP that the selection of Chiang Rai as a 
venue for the talks would have a psychological impact on Myanmar which Thai 
authorities accuse of harbouring the drug manufacturers who send an 
estimated 600 million amphetamine pills across the border every years.

General Thamarak Issarangkun Na Ayutthaya, the minister who oversees the 
Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), said the meeting will come up 
with master plan to close down the drugs trade.

He said Thai officials would use the same sort of coordinated political 
strategy that they used to fight the advance of communism in the early 1980s.

Thamarak said the government will declare target areas where its efforts 
will be focused, and plans to give the military more powers to help it 
combat traffickers.

"We also want to speed up the execution process for convicted drug 
traffickers," he said.

Successive Thai governments have become increasingly alarmed by the 
worsening problem of drug addiction, which has extended its tentacles into 
the nation's villages and schools.

Nationwide, an estimated 12.4 percent of Thailand's 5.4 million students 
are battling drug addiction.
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