Final sentence: “He called for strict law enforcement without heeding the concern of human right advocates.”

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php?newsid=30069230

ONCB says alarming increase in the number of drug users

Hat Yai, Songkhla The Office of the Narcotic Control Board (ONCB) has expressed grave concern over the sharp increase in the number of drug users in Thailand, saying the number of illicit drug users jumped to 2.5 million in 2007, up by half a million from the previous year.

Kitti Limchaikit, secretary-general of the ONCB, told a press conference in Hat Yai that he was alarmed because the latest figure indicated a big rise in the number of users. According to ONCB figures, Thailand had about 475,000 drug users in 2003.

Moreover, the three southernmost provinces accounted for about 300,000 of the 2.5 million users for 2007, while Bangkok accounted for about 128,707 users.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php?newsid=30067747

Are those who are unable to control themselves the supporters of the war on drugs? If so what do you mean by unable to control themselves?

I mean both sides are not able to control themselves. I believe violent reaction is an equally extreme behavior as using substances and therefore, not a particularly progressive situation. By submitting to the actions of drug traffickers and drug users, supporters of the war give credit to the aforementioned for being such a threat to the regular way of life that they must be violent in response. That violence is seemingly the only option, I believe, does not reflect a strong character for those war on drugs supporters and is equally weak as those either selling or defecting into a comatose state because the prime motivator is fear. Fear is not strength, and therefore not control.

I think that this promotes interesting questions on how violence is viewed culturally. In my limited scope, I believe that when violence is justified, it is really the justification of cowardice. From what other emotional position allows a justification of violent behavior? Are there other monastic or ascetic positions and perspectives?

*steps down from the lectern*

Government officials make up black lists, people on those lists show up systematically dead. No one officially knows how, but knowing how things work at the unreported and untransparent local rural level can well guess how.

Then inquiries and headlines ask whether anyone was killed who shouldn’t have been, because if this is true, then it was ok after all, which misses the whole point of judicial inquiries in the first place, as opposed to local lynch mobs or vigilante justice or extra-judcial cops out of uniform or mob justice. In the end, they just prune the twigs or level functionaries in the drug distribution network, and democratic or at least very popular bloodlust sentiment is satisfied, and the big guys really in control just replace those low level functionaries, i.e. BS.

I think it is a universal issue where people who are unable to control themselves look to blame an ‘other’, in this case, drugs.

Indeed, and this ‘other’ is often fused with other ‘others’. (Try saying that 3 times fast!) In the United States, the Drug War is linked to Blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, and most recently ‘terrorists’; in Thailand, drugs are linked to the hill-tribes and the southern insurgents. In both countries, the police are much more likely to bust down the doors of a suspected crack-house in the slums, than they are to raid the Ecstasy-driven drug parties of the rich, teenaged elite.

For statistics of just how disproportionate the Drug War is in America, I recommend going here. I also recommend the journalistic work/activism of Radley Balko.

“people who are unable to control themselves look to blame an ‘other’, in this…”

I don’t follow. Are those who are unable to control themselves the supporters of the war on drugs? If so what do you mean by unable to control themselves?