We can connect you to the right reform group. This get-tough approach comes at the same time that Prime Minister Thaksin's government is moving toward favoring treatment over incarceration for users. An estimated one million people from Myanmar are currently in Thailand, as refugees or undocumented workers, most illegally.
Some insurgents deal in narcotics to finance their rebellions or simply to make money.
Elements of the Myanmar military in frontline posts, as well as some Thai businessmen and individual police and army personnel, are also involved in the drug trade. Thailand has become alarmed by the inflow, as trafficking in heroin largely for export to the West has given way to the demand for methamphetamines for the Southeast Asian market. As many as three million Thais are using the illicit pills, including middle-class and upper levels of society, in contrast with heroin, which has tended to hook manual laborers and the unemployed. The Journal notes that the drug trade has escalated tensions on the Thai border, and has led to clashes with Myanmar. The reality is Myanmar gives priority to security, happy to have the USWA end its insurgency and content to leave the group armed and with time to shift out of narcotics.