More younger people getting addicted

The age of youths at risk of methamphetamine addiction dropped to as low as 10 years old due mainly to a failure in control measures that has made drugs available in the black market at a cheaper price, the Public Health Ministry revealed yesterday.

This month alone, police have reportedly arrested 579 criminals in Bangkok, of whom 515 are allegedly involved in illicit drug trade, and have seized 7,700 ya ba tablets and 50 kilograms of kratom leaves.

Medical Services deputy chief Dr Boonreun Triruenworarat said ya ba, a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine in tablet form known in Thai as crazy medicine, was the most popular among youths, followed by natural narcotics such as marijuana.

Ya ba, which is widely available, is believed to cure motion sickness and keep the user awake, he said, adding that most tablets were made from a cocktail of drugs.

Boonreun blamed the failure of strict controls and lax punishments for drug dealers as the main cause of the widespread usage and the rising number of new, younger addicts. He said the situation was getting worse and more people were getting addicted, especially women and teenagers, because the narcotics were now available online at a cheap price.

Citing past records that showed the age of addicts as being between 18 and 24, he said, addicts nowadays were between 13 and 18 years of age. The youngest addict found is a 10yearold boy, who was forced by his neighbour to take drugs and then became a drug dealer, he added.

"If we seriously control the drug trade, the price of the narcotics will rise and become unaffordable for most youths," he said.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deputy secretarygeneral, Veerawan Tangkaew, said his agency had asked drug stores to strictly control the sale of pseudoephedrine drugs, especially to customers who wish to purchase it in large quantities, because it may be used to produce ya ba.

Over the past year, more than 80,000 addicts have been rehabilitated, but only 20,000 entered the programme voluntarily, Boonreun said.

"It was difficult to rehabilitate addicts who took ya ba in a cocktail formula," he added.

Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban has called on relevant agencies, including the police, Army and the Public Health Ministry, to jointly find solutions to control the trafficking of ya ba.

At Government House yesterday, Suthep told reporters after a onehour meeting on the issue with police, army and other agencies, that he had issued policy instructions with regard to drug prevention and suppression. The Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) would be coordinating the operation, he said.

Suthep will be meeting police chiefs from across the country on Friday to discuss drug suppression. Results of their operations would be evaluated on a monthly basis, and after the first six months, all reports would be made public. He confirmed that nobody's rights would be violated nor would there be any killings of suspected drug traffickers, and that everything would go according to law.