Ampthetamine policy has ‘lost its way’

Has Thailand’s tough policy on narcotic drugs created a monster out of methamphetamines resulting in the poor being punished with the heaviest sentences, and prison overcrowding?

An article published on the online outlet Thai Publica in July last year by Mutita Chuachang about the need to rethink the country’s policy on ya ba has resurfaced recently. The content is relevant to the Justice Ministry’s controversial proposal to remove crystal meth from the illicit dangerous drug list and shift the drug policy away from heavy suppression.

While the problem of drug abuse has haunted governments for many decades, there has been no success in tackling it, the article said.

One result that cannot be overlooked is the number of convicts serving sentences for drug offences has risen considerably under the traditional policy of heavy suppression.

Thai prisons are sixth worst in the world for over-crowding, the article said. The corrections system can accommodate around 160,000 prisoners but has to house more than 300,000 now. Of that amount, 60-70% are drug-related cases.

“Inmates are packed in like canned fish. It robs people of human dignity. It’s worse than the conditions that pet cats or dogs typically endure,’’ former Constitutional Court judge Jaran Pakditanakul said during a talk on drugs in the mass media.

According to Mr Jaran, the “war on drugs” could only halt the spread of narcotics temporarily. Once the campaigns are over, the situation returns to normal, or gets worse.

It’s estimated there were about 1.8 million drug addicts in 2014. As for cases that entered the court, the number increased from 327,000 cases in 2013 to 350,000 in the first half of 2015, Mr Jaran said.

He said judges had no choice but to rule on drug-related cases according to the law even though the law designates too heavy a punishment.

He said there are about 45,000 female convicts from drug-related cases whose average punishment is two years in jail.

This means most of them are smalltime dealers, traffickers or users, he said. This also means the rehabilitation track to which small-time users could be diverted is hardly implemented.

“To have 45,000 female convicts means a failure of 45,000 families and a host of resulting social problems,’’ Mr Jaran said.

Supreme Court assistant judge Nawarat Klinrat said thanks to the influence of the Unites States, Thailand designates a heavy punishment of life behind bars for imports of ya ba under the Narcotics Act. A “manufacturing” or “import for distribution” of methamphetamines, meanwhile, carries a maximum sentence of death.

Before the act, however, amphetamines — known at that time as ya ma or ya khayun (hard-working pill) — were produced by a pharmacy named Welcome and available over the counter. Even students were known to have consumed them so they could stay up late to prepare for exams, the article said.

Former minister Sanoh Thienthong changed the name ya ma to ya ba in 1996 and methamphetamine was listed as a Category 1 dangerous and illicit drug [on par with heroin and LSD]. Legal punishment in association for its trafficking became heavier as well, from five years’ imprisonment to death.

There is still a problem of proportionate punishment [under the act]. For example, people who sell 20,000 ya ba pills at one time would receive a lighter punishment than those who sell 20 pills on three separate occasions as the court bases its rulings on instances, the article said.

“The law that carries heavy punishment has resulted in the drug being harder to obtain while its value has been driven higher,’’ Mr Nawarat said.

He suggested the law be amended to allow the court to avoid giving heavy punishments in small cases and foster a harm reduction environment.

Appeals Court judge Kamjud Puangsawat was more forthright in his opinion that the state is on the wrong track altogether in its attempts to tackle drug problems.

Not only has the traditional control-andsuppression approach failed to arrest the drug problem but it has created many new ones especially in prisons.

“The entire narcotics law is wrong. The definition of narcotics, their distribution and imports is all wrong. We have been made to fear the drug more than we should,’’ Mr Kamjud said in the report.

He cited as an example an inconsistency in punishment between drug-related offences and other crimes. Manslaughter can carry a punishment of 15 to 20 years imprisonment, a life term or death while someone who brought one and a half pills of ya ba into the country must be punished only by a lifetime in prison, which can be halved to 25 years if he or she confesses to the crime, the judge said.

A-ngun, one of more than 600 female convicts in the Udon Thani correction facility, said she had never thought the 20 meth pills which she brought into Nong Khao from Laos for her own consumption would land her in jail for 25 years. The single mother of three has served two years of her sentence.

“I never thought the punishment would be so severe. I was a user, not a seller. It was unimaginable,’’ A-ngun said in tears.