Thai plant may help cure "speed" addicts

By Jan McGirk in Bangkok

The government in Thailand is considering scrapping a 60-year ban on a powerful home-grown stimulant in an effort to help nearly three million people beat their addiction to "speed".

Leaves from the tropical kratom tree, said to have psychedelic properties, could be used as an organic substitute for methamphetamine to ease withdrawal. Nearly a quarter of a million addicts are seeking help from government clinics and army detox camps and have been reassured that drugs charges will be dropped if they can get clean.

A government crackdown earlier this year on traffickers of ya ba pills unleashed a killing spree that left 2,274 suspected dealers dead. Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister, claims 90 per cent of drug supplies to Thailand have been stopped and says he is committed to rooting out the remaining dealers this year.

There are an estimated 2.75 million people who habitually use speed, giving Thailand the world's highest addiction rate. Pinya Chuayplod, a Thai senator, told the Bangkok Post that kratom could help drug users to overcome their cravings.

Native to Thailand, kratom is sold online as a drug of choice for wannabe shamans. But Thai labourers pick their own leaves to help them endure the long hours. A mouthful is energising and induces euphoria - in the same way as qat or coca leaves - but bigger doses can be damaging.

Chewing the leaves is an old folk remedy for quitting opium and researchers in Japan and Australia are looking at possible uses in surgery. Cultivation is prohibited and, by law, officials must chop down kratom trees growing on public land.

The authorities estimate that a billion tablets of methamphetamine were smuggled into Thailand a year, mainly from Laos and Burma. Some analysts suggest that speed fuelled the boom years of the Thai economy in the early 1990s.

The Prime Minister's three-month drug blitz ended last month and won him popular acclaim. But the UN and human rights activists suspect that hundreds of reported murders mayhave been extrajudicial police executions. The government has admitted police shot dead 42 drug dealers, mostly in "self-defence".

- Independent.co. UK : May 22 -