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Published on September 3, 2007

Pitthaya Jinawat said the war on drugs by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra dramatically reduced the number of drug-related cases in 2004 and 2005.

Thaksin is now under investigation by a special committee over 2,500 deaths of drug suspects during his get-tough campaign.

But Pitthaya said law-enforcement officers might have wrongly interpreted the policy and resorted to extra-judicial killings as a measure to deal with suspects.

"At that time, the government wanted drug suspects to be stopped permanently and government agencies might have thought that killings were a way to have them permanently stopped," Pitthaya said.

He was speaking at a symposium on the drug problem at a Bangkok hotel.

He said before Thaksin declared the war on drugs in 2003, the abuse of methamphetamine was widespread.

There were up to 200,000 drug-related cases a year from 2001 to 2002 but after the Thaksin government used drastic measures to deal with the problem, the number fell by 75 per cent in 2004 and 2005.

In 2003, the Thaksin government sent about 315,000 drug abusers into rehabilitation compared with 40,000 a year earlier, Pitthaya said.

He said the Thaksin government also brought down the number of people suspected of getting involved with the drug trade in villages.

Pitthaya said the number of drug cases rose by 25 per cent in 2006 and 2007. He said political instability and fatigue on the part of police might have contributed to the increase.

He noted the Surayud government was also serious about drug suppression, which could be seen by the fact that the prime minister chaired the ONCB himself, prompting military leaders and the justice and interior ministers to attend meetings.

But the current government was more prudent in handling the suppression because it worried about the extra-judicial killings of the Thaksin government, he added.