New Thai law: Less meth tablets, more help – addicts eligible for treatment, not jail

Thailand‘s Public Health Ministry is set to roll out a new regulation, enabling individuals found with less than ten methamphetamine tablets to be seen as drug addicts, making them eligible for treatment over imprisonment, according to Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew. This significant shift in policy was revealed yesterday during a ministry meeting centred on drug suppression efforts for the fiscal year 2024.

The Health Ministry aims to redefine the term drug addicts to include patients with a history of substance abuse and make concerted efforts to channel them towards rehabilitation. This move forms part of a broader strategy to tackle drug abuse more effectively within the kingdom.

Furthermore, the plan is to establish links between local clinics and larger hospitals to streamline treatment processes and render services more accessible for drug users. To this end, a committee has been formed to coordinate with the Narcotics Control Board to revise the current ministerial regulation, a process scheduled for completion in December.

Under the new ministerial regulation, anyone found with over ten meth tablets will be classed as a drug dealer. Those found with fewer tablets will be viewed as drug users or drug addicts. Cholnan explained that the ten-tablet threshold is derived from the standard drug package size, which typically contains ten tablets.

However, further investigation will still be necessary to determine whether individuals found with fewer than ten meth tablets are indeed drug dealers.

In a bid to extend treatment services, the ministry plans to establish smaller branches of Thanyarak Hospital across all provinces in Thailand. As many as 146 community hospitals have already expressed interest in participating in the project, set to kick off on December 1, reported Bangkok Post.

Psychiatric wards

In addition to this, Cholnan revealed that the ministry intends to increase the number of psychiatric wards in every provincial hospital run by the state. Currently, 69 psychiatric wards are operational in 58 provinces, necessitating the establishment of additional facilities to cover all 77 provinces.

In related news, in an attempt to combat a swiftly rising number of dengue fever cases in Thailand, the Public Health Ministry initiated an aggressive campaign to eradicate mosquitoes.

The nationwide surge of infections, which is experiencing an increase of an estimated 5,000 incidences each week, prompted this decisive action, according to Thares Krassanairavirong, the Disease Control Department’s director-general. Read more about this story HERE.

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