The government continues to press on with its failed war on drugs, when the country would be better served by a serious effort to reform this old programme. Last week, secretary-general of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board Sirinya Sitdhichai announced the agency was to assume yet another new power. He says he and ONCB enforcement agents can now hold parcel delivery firms responsible if they carry drugs.
This announcement, with its attendant press conference and official media release, amounts to practically nothing. What it means is that the legal expert of the cabinet -- Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam -- told Mr Sirinya that the ONCB can order courier companies to take the particulars of senders and the destinations of their packages. If this sounds familiar, it should. Thailand Post and virtually every large cargo and parcel shipper, foreign and domestic, already do this.
Mr Sirinya insisted such a measure is necessary given that small, startup courier services do not always record the ID of the sender and/or the address of the consignee as required by the law. In recent months, small-time drug smugglers have sussed out this point and sent drug packets to dealers or customers via courier packets. Without ID recording, the ONCB said several drug smugglers managed to escape the arm of the law. The ONCB now has official permission from the government to warn the carriers and, if they persist, to fine them as possible accomplices in drug smuggling. Repeated offences may cost them their operation licence.
It's another step by the ONCB which is trying to look modern and adaptive in a drug market that is out of control. Despite huge seizures involving millions of tablets and dozens of kilogrammes worth millions of baht, authorities are falling farther and farther behind. The latest figures from the Thai Prison Life NGO show more than 70% of jail inmates are drug abusers or small-time dealers who have no clue who the "big fish" that run drug rackets are. That is more than 230,000 people behind bars, while drug smuggling and trafficking continue to flourish.
About a month ago, an anti-drug police raid detained the once-popular TV actress and 2006 Miss Teen Thailand Amelia "Amy" Jacobs, 28, and her 40-year-old boyfriend, Punyawat Hirantecha. Between them, the couple had 17 grammes of methamphetamine and 16 ecstasy pills. Under the law, this seizure makes the owner a drug peddler, not to mention there were scales in their apartment. They face 15 or more years in prison.
A few days later, a police raid nabbed three men with one million methamphetamine pills, 400 kilogrammes of crystal meth, 148 bottles of liquid ketamine and 600 grammes of ketamine powder flakes. They face 15 or more years in prison.
While the ONCB seeks to toughen anti-drug measures, it seems to be leaving behind a drug reform idea raised last year by then-minister of justice Gen Paiboon Koomchaya that would have change all of the above. Small amounts of meth for personal use was to be tolerated. Dealers with large seizures would go into the court system. In both cases, the long vilified ya ba would be considered a regulated, but legal drug.
The bottom line is that the ONCB is packing young people into prison, youths and women alike, with no idea of what to do with them. Many come out as determined criminals; almost none are reformed.
Portugal's experience in drug management is well worth considering. The ONCB, cabinet, the police and the new, forward-looking chief of prisons Naras Savestanan, need to talk reform. With all resources and funds poured into enforcement of out-of-date drug laws, authorities only appear stubborn. Reform must aim at corralling the big fish, while dealing humanely with drug abusers.