Pubdate: Wed, 19 Mar 2003
Source: Bangkok Post (Thailand)
Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2003
Contact:  http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/39
Author: Anucha Charoenpo

STATE TAKES NEW APPROACH TO DRUG-RELATED CRIMES

Those Suspected Of Drug Crimes Are Now To Be Sent For Rehabilitation Rather 
Than To Court And A Term In Prison If Convicted.

Those all-too-common newspaper and television images of drug-crazed men 
holding a child and/or woman hostage are expected to become a thing of the 
past should the new Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act help reduce the number 
of drug-related crimes.

The Act, which came into effect on March 3, is the first of its kind in 
Thailand and, as such, it has been the subject of wide debate among 
probation officers, the police and the wider community.

Many people are afraid the compulsory rehabilitation programme required 
under the Act might not prove successful in helping serious drug users 
overcome their addictions, and many others see other problems, particularly 
to do with staffing and the return of drug users to the community. But 
their voices seem to have gone unheard by Justice Minister Pongthep 
Thepkanchana as he pushes ahead to bring the Act into effect.

The Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act went through its first draft when Mr 
Pongthep served his first term as justice minister nearly three years ago.

The idea behind it is for drug addicts to be treated as being ill and in 
need of treatment. They will have the opportunity to receive rehabilitation 
or be brought before the courts if any crime has been committed.

The aim is to reduce the overcrowding of Thai prisons, which now house as 
many as 250,000 convicts, most of whom were convicted on drug-related 
charges, and to break the dependence of drug users on drug dealers.

The Act places the responsibility for the programme jointly on the Justice, 
Education, Interior and Public Health ministries, the armed forces, the 
police, community groups and non-governmental organisations. They will be 
encouraged to cooperate more closely in support of the programme.

"Unity and cooperation among state agencies look to be the biggest 
challenge [to the success of the programme]," said Siroj Dulalumpha, head 
of the Drug Addict Rehabilitation Centre in Pathum Thani's Lat Lum Kaeo 
district.

Mr Siroj said the government would need time to inform all the state 
officers involved of their responsibilities under the Act. He said there 
were also sure to be conflicting opinions and the different agencies would 
probably have their own way of going about things.

"The Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act is a new innovation," he said. "It is 
not surprising that it is so widely criticised. But looking on the bright 
side, the rehabilitation system will improve things in the near future."

Pol Lt-Gen Achirawit Suphannaphesat, commissioner of the 4th Regional 
Police Bureau covering the upper Northeast, said the idea behind the Act 
was something new to police, especially non-commissioned officers, and it 
would take time to inform them of its intricacies.

The commissioner said he was already providing training on all aspects of 
the Act so his officers could do their best as they would continue to 
arrest those suspected of drug-related crimes before they would be handed 
on to the rehabilitation process.

"Apart from an understanding of what is involved, the police face the 
problem of a shortage of funds," he said. "We have to spend a lot taking 
the many drug suspects to court each day as the government has never 
allocated us with a special budget."

The Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act takes effect initially in 36 provinces. 
A further 34 provinces will be added in June, and the final six a month later.

The Justice Ministry expects 80,000 of the country's 300,000 estimated drug 
addicts, based on figures supplied by the Office of the Narcotics Control 
Board, to pass through the rehabilitation programme this year. Once they 
have completed the programme, they will be returned to society under the 
supervision of probation officers and volunteers.

The Act requires the police to send all drug suspects aged over 18 years to 
court for an initial hearing within 48 hours of their arrest and all drug 
suspects under 18 years to court within 24 hours.

The police can ask the court at this initial hearing to grant the continued 
detention for a further 15 days of anyone suspected of taking drugs, taking 
and possessing drugs, taking, possessing and selling drugs, or taking and 
selling drugs.

The court can refuse the police request and try the suspect on the spot or 
it can forward the case to a provincial committee made up of a state 
prosecutor, doctor, psychologist, social welfare officer, probation officer 
and an "honourable" person to decide whether the suspect has a drug 
addiction or not.

The committee must reach its decision within 15 days of the suspect's 
arrest, although this can be extended by a further 30 days if the committee 
cannot reach a conclusion. Anyone classified a drug addict will have to 
undergo rehabilitation.

The Act separates those who will undergo the rehabilitation programme into 
two categories.

Suspects adjudged to have a serious drug addiction will be sent for 
rehabilitation at one of 34 military camps or the Probation Department's 
drug addict rehabilitation centre in Pathum Thani.

Those not so dependent on drugs will be sent for rehabilitation at a 
hospital or health office or returned to their home community or a temple. 
These people need not stay at their place of rehabilitation for the 
duration of the programme and may be allowed to stay at home if they appear 
trustworthy enough to report themselves for rehabilitation and to state 
officers.

The rehabilitation period has been set at six months but could be extended 
to a maximum of three years. Anyone who fails to satisfy those in charge of 
the programme will be prosecuted without exception.

The provincial committee will not send drug users who have shown they have 
beaten their addictions for prosecution. They will be cleared of all drug 
charges and will not have a drug-related police record.

A senior official at Chiang Mai Probation Office who asked not to be named 
said she was very worried about the added workload that will be placed on 
staff who are required to look after the inmates of rehabilitation centres 
and monitor their behaviour while they are under probation once the 
rehabilitation programme is completed.

She also doubted whether the government would open more rehabilitation 
centres even though the existing facilities were hardly likely to cope with 
the increased number of "serious drug addicts".

Chiang Mai is one of the 36 provinces where the programme has already taken 
effect.

She said her office was having trouble watching over drug addicts and she 
did not think the two existing rehabilitation centres had enough beds to 
cope with the increased number of inmates. A military camp in Mae Rim 
district has set aside 330 beds for male addicts and there are 80 beds for 
females at an air force base in Muang district.

The official said her office would also be asked to look after drug addicts 
tried by the provincial committees in nearby Lamphun, Lampang and Mae Hong 
Son, and this required urgent government action to avert the potential for 
major problems.

Although the Probation Department has been granted approval to recruit 699 
temporary staff to add to its 1,200 permanent officers engaged in the 
rehabilitation programme, there was no guarantee that this would be enough. 
In fact, she said, 19,000 more probation volunteers needed to be recruited 
to help run the programme.

Chaweng Inthawong, a probation volunteer at the Nom Klao community in 
Bangkok's Wang Thong Lang district, said the government had not done enough 
to explain the implications of the Act to the public.

He said his community, which is said to have serious drug problems, needed 
further information about the Act so the residents understood its 
intentions and were able to sympathise more with drug addicts being 
rehabilitated under the programme.

Some drug users adjudged as not having a serious addiction will undergo 
rehabilitation in their home communities under the close supervision of 
probation officers and volunteers.

The Probation Department recently launched a 10-million-baht campaign in 
communities where rehabilitation will take place to try to change people's 
poor opinion of drug dependents.

"The communities and families of drug addicts should give them moral 
support and stand by them," said Kittiphong Kitayarak, director-general of 
the Probation Department. "They should try to understand them, give them a 
chance and find them jobs. They will become good people who return to do 
useful things for society."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom