BANGKOK In a backroom heavy with sawdust, Mr Akkarin Puri, 33, carefully examines the veneer of a half-finished guitar. There was a time when the craftsman's attention was more focused on inhaling the vapours from a pill of yaba - a methamphetamine - heated over a flame. In fact, by the age of 21, his drug habit had landed him in juvenile detention at least six times and a military lock-up for 18 months. There, he tried to rob a fellow addict to fund his next fix and landed himself in jail for another eight years. It was while doing time in a particularly notorious prison, in Pathum Thani province next to Bangkok, that he saw up close one of the gravest consequences of the kingdom's long-running "war on drugs". [continues 1319 words]
S. China Sea Gets Brief Mention in His State of the Nation Address Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday defended his deadly anti-crime war even as he enumerated a host of big measures to bring economic relief to wage earners, conclude peace with communist and Muslim rebels, fix infrastructure bottlenecks and improve disbursement of government resources through a shift to federalism. "We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars - or below the ground if they so wish," Mr Duterte said in his first State of the Nation Address before Congress. [continues 510 words]
Move targets marijuana use amid prison population boom; some drugs may be reclassified for controlled use Marijuana or methamphetamine users in Thailand may get rehabilitation rather than jail under broad changes to the country's narcotics policy. The kingdom is reviewing its zero-tolerance approach, which has caused its prison population to balloon without actually controlling the proliferation of illicit drugs. Draft legal changes, recently approved by the Cabinet and expected to be tabled in Parliament, would emphasise rehabilitation over jail terms for drug users and mandate more proportional sentences. They will be put in place before the term of the current military government expires, Justice Minister Paiboon Kumchaya said this week. [continues 448 words]
MANILA - The Philippine government yesterday hailed its war on drugs a "success", as police confirmed killing nearly 200 people in a two-month blitz that has outraged rights groups. President Rodrigo Duterte's office released a statement calling for the authorities to "seize the momentum" of the anti-drug campaign, which has also led to a spate of vigilante killings that one media group claims to have taken some 200 more lives. "Anti-drug campaign a success," said the title of the statement, released by presidential spokesman Martin Andanar. "While the campaign against drugs is far from perfect, a generation of Filipinos have been saved from this scourge of society and destroyer of lives." [continues 67 words]
The long war on drugs is taking its toll elsewhere, it seems, with some countries pushing for a less hardline approach. What the new approach, euphemistically named "harm reduction", embodies in reality is that the war is already half lost. It assumes that since a world free of drugs is plausibly impossible, policies should be tailored to minimise the harm associated with their use. The approach includes the provision of clean needles for drug abusers and supervised injection sites. An associated development is the relaxation of sanctions on certain drugs. [continues 374 words]
Review Needed Only If There Is Evidence That a Different Model Will Work Better, He Says at UN Singapore will not soften its drug policies, Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam has said at a United Nations meeting, pushing back against calls for a shift in approach to the global war on drugs. Mr Shanmugam did not mince words in his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, as he issued a strong rebuttal to countries pushing for a less hardline approach. [continues 448 words]
Singapore's uncompromising stance against drugs is the reason it has stayed relatively drug-free, with arrested drug abusers comprising less than 0.1 per cent of the country's population. Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Lee said this on Monday at a meeting of international delegates, at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna, Austria. The event is a preparatory meeting for the upcoming UN General Assembly Special Session on the world's drug problem next month, when members will set goals for global drug control in the next decade. [continues 550 words]
Some countries are legalising the use of certain pernicious drugs, like cannabis, but Singapore cannot afford to contemplate that prospect. Not after having struggled with drug abuse since its founding. Indeed, it was a distribution centre for opium during colonial times. By the time its British rulers awoke to the need for anti-drug laws, addiction had worked its way through society, leading to various forms of experimentation, even among schoolchildren. That prompted the setting up of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) in 1971. Over four decades later, the agency is still waging war against the scourge. [continues 357 words]
Asean countries must continue to take a hard stance against drugs, even as societies in Europe, South America and the United States take a more liberal approach, Second Minister for Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Masagos Zulkifli said yesterday . "They have begun decriminalising or even legalising drug consumption and have framed the fight against drugs as a 'failed war'," he told more than 100 delegates at the opening of the 36th Asean Senior Officials' Meeting on Drug Matters. While these countries may have their reasons for doing so, such as to increase tax revenue or reduce prison overcrowding, he asked for the region to "stand together to say that this approach is not for us". [continues 234 words]
Drug Seizures and Arrests Hit Highest Levels in 2013; Spike in the Use of Ice The imminent execution in Indonesia of two Australians caught there for trafficking drugs comes as Australia faces its own worsening narcotics problem. PHOTO: REUTERS Mr Suhandro Putro, representative of The Javanese Christian Church funeral home, says they usually receive orders for caskets when executions are carried out on Nusakambangan, an island off Java. The extent of the problem can be seen from the Australian Crime Commission's most recent report on illegal drugs, released last April. [continues 689 words]
Jakarta (AFP) - An Indonesian funeral home has reportedly prepared at least 10 caskets for police ahead of the planned execution of death-row convicts, including two Australian drug smugglers whose sentences have strained the country's relations with Canberra. The report came as Indonesia announced yesterday that it had on Friday night deported Ms Candace Sutton, a reporter for Australia's Daily Mail, as she had interviewed without a proper visa a relative of one of the Australian convicts in the coastal town of Cilacap. [continues 199 words]
IN SINGAPORE, the National Council Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) marked World Drug Day on June 26 by reminding our children of the dangers of drugs. Alongside our anti-drug laws, enforcement officers and rehabilitative agencies, NCADA aims to build strong social resistance against drug abuse. Like other anti-drug policymakers and community leaders across the globe, I am alarmed at the recent momentum of the pro-drug lobby. Singapore's zero tolerance against drugs has worked well so far. But for a small, cosmopolitan and open country like Singapore, this is being eroded. We will have to join with like-minded partners to resist the pro-drug lobby for the sake of our children's future. [continues 708 words]
BANGKOK - THAILAND'S premier vowed on Thursday to step up an anti-narcotics campaign, and defended ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra against accusations that his drugs war was mired in extra-judicial killings. Mr Somchai Wongsawat said he was launching a 90 day campaign aimed at reducing drug use and trafficking in an extension of a crackdown initially started by his brother-in-law Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006. 'In the next 90 days the government will reduce the number of drug users and will intercept drugs from entering Thailand, but there will be no extra-judicial killings', Mr Somchai told justice and police officials. [continues 184 words]
They Tend To Meet While Doing Business Or At Social Gatherings THE cocaine-snorting circle in Singapore appears to be a small and tightly knit group. Its members are quite distinct from hardcore heroin addicts and yuppie party drug abusers, in that they tend to meet while doing business or at social gatherings, and will introduce each other to the drug as well as the syndicate selling it. However, sources said these people usually use the drugs for personal consumption. They don't dish it out at private parties. [continues 709 words]
THE British editor of Singapore Tatler magazine and an award-winning French chef were among 23 people arrested in a swoop on a suspected cocaine trafficking ring on Thursday and yesterday. They included expatriates and Singaporeans, brokers, businessmen, a young director of a shipping company and executives, including one whom sources said was always driven around in a Rolls-Royce. Most were picked up on suspicion of having or consuming drugs, but three face the death penalty if found guilty of drug trafficking. [continues 362 words]
New Cartels Keep Surfacing, but US Drug Czar Insists the Cocaine Supply Will Fall Within a Year MEXICO CITY - The US drugs czar has admitted that Washington's anti-narcotics policy in Latin America has so far failed. Mr John Walters, who heads the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, acknowledged that billions of dollars of investment over many years have failed to dent the flow of Latin American cocaine onto US streets, but he predicted progress would be seen soon. [continues 280 words]
BANGKOK - A recent survey suggested not only that the government's controversial war on drugs last year was a hollow victory, but also painted a picture of Thai youth increasingly adrift from traditional values and family ties. Data extrapolated from the survey by Assumption University, which covered more than 14,000 youngsters aged 11 to 26 years in 29 provinces, found the number of drug abusers more than doubled from 444,307 in February last year to 955,764 this February.Advertisement [continues 326 words]
Two-Month Campaign Aims To Collect Over 100,000 Palm Prints On Banners From Youths As a Pledge That They Will Not Take Drugs MORE than 6,000 volunteers from the People's Association (PA) Youth Movement and the National Police Cadet Corps are fanning out to at least 100 schools islandwide to collect students' palm prints. They want the youngsters to put their prints on banners as a pledge that they will not take drugs. The effort is part of a two-month campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs. The organisers, the PA Youth Movement and the National Council Against Drug Abuse, are hoping to collect more than 100,000 prints during that period. [continues 272 words]
Indian immigrant community caught up in cycle of violence that has claimed 76 lives so far; gang members often from well-off families VANCOUVER - The killings were brazen, often carried out execution-style, police said. The most famous case involved a masked man who walked up to a notorious drug dealer on a dance floor and fired a bullet into his head behind the ear. In the past 13 years, police have reported 76 young men killed in the Vancouver area in gang-related violence. The authorities blame drug deals gone bad and local turf wars, involving mainly well-to-do young people of Indian descent. [continues 426 words]
There have been 23 raids so far this year, compared to 13 for whole of last year, as drugs like ketamine gain popularity AS PARTY drugs outsell heroin, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) is shifting its attention from street busts to nightclub raids. It has also increased the number of raids on nightspots dramatically, in an effort to stop the spread of drug abuse, particularly the penchant for ketamine. Advertisement In the first six months of this year, it carried out 23 raids. [continues 360 words]
