Students “use toilets as ya bah factories’

BANGKOK: Thai students have been turning school toilets into makeshift drug factories, churning out cut-price ya bah (methamphetamine) pills that are then sold to other youngsters. One of the trademark stamps on their pills depicts a wizard riding a broomstick, intended to attract fans of the fictional schoolboy wizard Harry Potter, said a Buddhist monk involved in a drugs eradication campaign in schools. Giving testimony before Education Ministry officials at a hearing yesterday, the monk said that the equipment used to make the pills was compact and could be smuggled easily into schools. Students involved in drugs production were rarely to be seen in classes, preferring to spend their time in the toilets pursuing the lucrative trade, he said. Fierce competition has driven down the price of the drug to 10 baht a pill for dealers and 20-50 baht for users. Some students have already been killed by competitors, the monk said.