TDRI estimated the number of heroin addicts in Thailand at 219,391 as of December 1993. Opium addicts are estimated at 111,000 in the same study. Seizure and arrest information is based on both USG and RTG figures. Consumption and addiction figures are based on a dated ONCB estimate of 35,000 hilltribe opium addicts. Northern Thailand is part of a fluid regional opium and heroin market that transcends borders with Burma and Laos.
Some opium produced in Burma and Laos is consumed or refined in Thailand, and vice versa.
Since the best recent data indicate that Thailand is a net importer of opiates, the net amount available for export and refining into heroin is zero. Small-scale heroin labs are set up in Thailand from time to time. Their overall production is no doubt small in comparison to labs in Burma and Laos, but the actual amount cannot be determined on the basis of available information. The first serious attempt to estimate the number of heroin addicts in Thailand was made in 1990, using a capture-recapture model. On the basis of not fully verified data, an estimate of 132,275 addicts was made.