Preferably, from mistakes committed and paid for by others. We should thus thank Bangkok Post deputy editor Nopporn Wong-Anan who suggested that “Duterte should learn from Thai drug policy” in his article I caught during a Bangkok visit last month. In Manila recently for a media conference, Nopporn found similarities in the antidrug policies followed by President Duterte and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The parallels were obvious. Thaksin was equally disdainful of the United Nations, which had expressed concerns about the conduct of the “war on drugs” he had launched in 2003: “The UN is not my father.” The rhetoric was comparable: “We have to be as ruthless with drug dealers as they are to our children.” Drug dealers “deserved” to be shot dead. The war claimed 2,800 deaths in the first three months of the campaign.
Nopporn cited an official investigation, after Thaksin’s ouster, which revealed that more than half of those killed had no drug connections. Many were victims of envious neighbors suspicious of their wealth, or of existing feuds with police officers. Nopporn reported that “despite a decades-long campaign, narcotic drugs use shows no signs of abating in Thailand.”
Thai Justice Minister Paiboon Kumchaya also concluded that the war on drugs had failed. Imprisonment did not seem effective in curing addiction. Despite jailing some 250,000 of an estimated 1.3 million addicts, 70 percent of drug offenders remained in prison, and people still complained about drugs in their communities. Addressing drug abuse as mainly a criminal problem also compromised Thailand’s campaign against HIV. Fear of arrest and imprisonment prevented drug users from essential, harm-reduction treatment services.
At a recent forum, “Thailand’s Drug Policy Revisited,” convened by the Institute of Justice, Paiboon focused on drug abuse as a health issue, enlisting support from the Ministry of Health. Dr. Sophon Mekthon, permanent secretary of public health, cited plans to implement three measures on the drug problem: 1) amending laws to encourage addicts to undergo rehabilitation; 2) improving the screening and rehabilitation of drug abusers; and 3) increasing the number of service points at tambon (barangay) level where “yaba” (their equivalent of “shabu”) users can seek help.
As part of the policy shift, Paiboon is coordinating with the Ministry of Health for the downgrading of yaba to Category 2 in the dangerous narcotics list. Private possession and use would still be illegal but would be subjected to reduced penalties. The reclassification would also permit the government, instead of destroying confiscated yaba, to use it for treatment under medical supervision.
A lucrative market for illegal drugs makes the trade difficult to stop. According to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, nearly two million Thais consume up to four billion yaba tablets a year. A manufacturing base in a neighboring country could produce at least one billion tablets a year—half of which were smuggled into Thailand, with about 20 percent or some 100 million pills seized by authorities.
Thus, Paiboon also wants to deploy an economic weapon in the drug war. He is proposing that the Food and Drug Administration produce the non-narcotic wakefulness-promoting agents modafinil and armodafinil as part of “harm reduction” measures. These substances would cost only 34 baht (US$1) per pill compared to the
yaba pill that costs 200 baht ($5.88) in the illegal market. Competition could further reduce amphetamine prices to 5-10 baht per pill. Paiboon believes that this drop would make the illegal drug business unprofitable. He is also prepared to consider removing marijuana and cannabis from the narcotics list as they could be classified as medicinal herbs.
PRRD has already acknowledged the international dimensions of the drug problem. Thailand and the Philippines differ in language, religion, institutions and culture. These differences should not prevent our learning from each other’s experiences in confronting a common drug problem.
The lessons drawn from Thaksin’s antidrug policy come from sources that PRRD should find credible. A career military man, General Paiboon had been a candidate to head the Thai Army and had also faced criticism for alleged violation of human rights. He had supported the junta’s zero-tolerance policy on drug offenders, until responsibility for dealing with the drug issue apparently prompted a change of strategy.
It was Thaksin’s popularly elected, civilian government that launched a violent war on drug criminals. With vastly greater weapons for that war, a military junta is now deliberately moderating the use of violence and shifting the drug policy from a mainly police perspective. Its pragmatic approach to the problem, calculating the costs and benefits of conducting the war, has led it to a more holistic approach that recognizes drugs as a health and social problem.
PRRD should have no qualms about learning from Thailand’s failed drug policy.
Edilberto C. de Jesus (edcdejesus@gmail.com) is professor emeritus at the Asian Institute of Management. Prof. Rofel Brion’s Tagalog translation of this column and others earlier published, together with other commentaries, are in https://secondthoughts.ph.