Public Health Minister Pinij Charusombat was on hand at the torching yesterday morning at the Bang Pa-in Industrial Estate.

It was the 34th time the country had held an official destruction of drugs.

Observers from Thai and international agencies and organisations were also present.

In all, 3.5 tonnes and 91 litres of illegal drugs worth Bt10.95 billion were destroyed. The drugs were seized in 246,430 illegal narcotics cases. Some 90 per cent of the drugs was "ya ba"; 32 million methamphetamine tablets.

Crime Suppression Police also collected 1.6 tonnes of marijuana for destruction.

The drugs were burned using the environment-friendly "pyrolytic" incineration technology. This burns drugs at 850 degrees Celsius, which causes molecules to quickly turn into carbon and create no air pollution.

Pinij said government efforts to curb drug trafficking along border areas had put a dent in imported narcotics.

Burning the seized drugs ensured they would never find a way back on to the market.

He said the government was not going soft on its war against drugs.

In the past six months the Health Ministry had rehabilitated 12,327 drug addicts and prevented 13,527 others from returning to drug use.

Deputy Secretary General of the Food and Drug Administration, Manit Arunakul, said nearly 20.5 tonnes of narcotics seized from 56,000 cases remained in FDA storage. Of that, 15.5 tonnes were methamphetamines and there were 2 tonnes of heroin and a tonne of opium.

Manit said since the war on drugs started in 2001, the number of illegal drugs seized had steadily decreased, from 8.5 tonnes in 2003 to 3.3 tonnes in 2004, 4.6 tonnes in 2005, and just 223 kilograms in the first four months of this year.

The International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is celebrated annually on June 26 to commemorate the signing of the declaration adopted at the International Conference against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking in 1987. A drugs bonfire was also held in Burma.