When Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced plans to reschedule cannabis as a narcotic and reduce the threshold for possession of methamphetamine for personal use (not for supply to others) from five pills to one, he signalled a return to drug policies championed over two decades ago. He called for crackdowns on people in the drug trade, for people who use drugs to be placed into rehabilitation facilities and demanded results in 90 days.
Success will be measured by an increase in the numbers of people arrested, volumes and value of drugs and assets seized, and numbers of people who use drugs ordered into drug rehab facilities -- rather than by any improvements to social, health and other quality of life outcomes for people, such as increased access to education, employment and housing, or increased availability of health services such as drug treatment services that are genuinely voluntary. It appears likely that the negative impacts of policing, punishment and criminalisation on individuals and their communities will be ignored.
In 2003, then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched a "war on drugs" with the promise of eradicating drugs from the country within four months. Law enforcement agencies were effectively given a licence to kill people suspected of being involved in drug-related activities. After a few months, an estimated 2,800 people had been killed in extra-judicial executions, with over 7,000 people injured. There has not been a single prosecution of any person for any of the killings.
Like the horrifically violent 2003 war on drugs, the proposals by Mr Srettha to re-criminalise cannabis and increase the criminalisation of methamphetamine rely on the flawed logic that harsher penalties will deter people from using or engaging in the supply of drugs. It places immense trust (and resources) on policing and punishment to solve deep-seated social and economic concerns for which the use and supply of drugs have been made the scapegoat.
Decades of punitive drug policies aspiring for a "drug-free world" have shown that they do not work to reduce the use and supply of drugs. The latest report on regional drug trends by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, for example, finds that the price of drugs such as methamphetamine has reached record lows -- meaning that scaled-up law enforcement efforts from countries such as Thailand have failed to disrupt supply.
While widespread corruption and abuses by police are acknowledged, measures to address those abuses and prevent them from being repeated remain at a nascent stage.
Another important legal reform to note is the Narcotics Code that came into effect in December 2021, which aimed to reduce the crisis of Thailand's overcrowded prisons (amongst the world's worst), where people are held mostly for the simple possession and/or consumption of drugs.
In recognition of the limitations of criminalisation and punishment to solve drug-related problems, the Narcotics Code also sought to ensure a healthy approach to the use of drugs. Efforts are still underway to work out modes of implementation.
The prime minister has said he wishes to act in the best interests of the people and to adopt innovative approaches to drugs. It is hoped he will avoid repeating the mistakes of past drug policies and rolling back progressive reforms.
This week, local and international organisations working on drug-related issues in Thailand sent a letter to the prime minister, urging his government to instead support the ongoing attempts at innovating Thailand's drug policy by taking steps away from policing and criminalisation, and towards improving social and health outcomes for local communities.
Gloria Lai is Regional Director: Asia, International Drug Policy Consortium.