Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2002

Thais To Shun Drug Dealers, Users

BAN PA-KWOW, Thailand (AP) - Seated in a Buddhist temple, the villagers scribbled on pieces of paper and dropped them in a box. The secret ballots contained names of friends, relatives and neighbors suspected to be drug traders or users.

If the accusations turned out to be true, the offenders would have to reform or else be shunned.

The threat of social sanctions is the latest weapon in a widening war on drugs, especially methamphetamine, the synthetic stimulant that has been declared Thailand's public enemy No. 1.

But the inform-on-your-neighbor strategy worries some Thais.

"To humiliate publicly, disgrace and shame people, is against human rights and the law,'' said Thongbai Thongpao, a leading civil liberties lawyer. "This kind of measure will lead to social conflict with people in the village, making enemies of each other.''

Suspected drug dealers, sitting, are shown at a news conference Thursday, Jan. 24, 2002, with seized drugs at Mae Sai police station in Chiang Rai province, 422 miles north of Bangkok, after being rounded up in an operation to suppress drug dealers. The suspects, whose names were from the police's blacklists, were arrested when police were alerted to their behavior from a secret ballot program which was introduced in Chiang Rai province last October. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

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