New Thai drug war will hurt efforts to fight Aids: activists

Health activists and NGOs have warned the Thai government that its new 'war on drugs', launched last week, undermines efforts to combat the spread of HIV/Aids and will drive infected users underground.

Karyn Kaplan, policy director of Thai Aids Treatment Action Group (TTAG), said: 'It is very scary. It is dubbed a national security operation, with a complete disdain for human rights. The interests of public health and HIV prevention will be compromised.'

When Thailand's first 'war on drugs' was launched in 2003 under Thaksin Shinawatra, who was then prime minister, the campaign resulted in at least 2,500 killings of suspected drug users and others in three months. The killings were heavily criticised by human rights groups, which deemed them extrajudicial.

A feared resumption of harsh measures under the new government of Samak Sundaravej would fly in the face of appeals from the UN secretary general and UNAids calling for the decriminalisation of injecting drug use.

Fifty per cent of Thailand's heroin addicts and injecting users are HIV positive, according to TTAG.

Interior Minister Chalerm Yubamrung defended the government's new war on drugs, saying: 'I have never said that I have a policy of extrajudicial killings'. But he added: 'I said drugs are very complicated. If you don't want to die, don't walk down that road.'