Drug dealers ride rails for sales

BANGKOK (AFP): Drug dealers are using Bangkok’s new mass-transit Skytrain system to target new clients and expand their markets, reports said this morning. Students are complaining that well-dressed amphetamine dealers are approaching them on the Bangkok Transit System (BTS) and offering them drugs, The Nation said, quoting the deputy director of Bangkok’s Transport Office. To combat the natty peddlers, the BTS plans to step up security on station platforms, employing far more police and plainclothes security officials, the report said. Thai army chief General Surayud Chulanont has repeatedly warned that amphetamine abuse among Thai school students is rising precipitously. Last year, Thai police seized 44 million methamphetamine pills, most of which were produced in Myanmar. Research and interviews carried out over the past two months found that more than 600,000 Thai children were addicted to drugs, the Bangkok Post recently reported. Researcher Dr Sompong Jitradub said drug rings were using young addicts to traffic in narcotics and to lure their friends and schoolmates into experimenting with drugs.