The spread of narcotics and drug abuse in border provinces of southern Thailand

Introduction

This research is intended to investigate the spread of narcotics and drug abuse among the youth in southern border provinces, and the relationship between the youth's backgrounds and their drug experiences; to compare factors related to drug use between youths from formal and non-formal edu-cation systems, between Buddhist and Muslim youths, and between the youths with and without drug experiences; to determine factors leading to drug addiction among such youths; to investigate the ex-tent of drug abuse in the past, at present and in the future, and to find causes of drug abuse, distribution means as well as its prevention and suppression.

Body

Through stratified random sampling, the samples of this research were 965 youths from the formal education system, 523 from the non-formal education system, and 240 government officers involved in drug abuse prevention and suppression, and drug treatments.

It was found that drug experience correlated with the youth's age, sex, education level; fellow household members; parent's occupation; experiences with friends who smoke, drink, or experiment with drugs; number of peers who smoked cigarettes, and occurrence of domestic disputes, significant-ly at the level of .05.

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On comparing the youth from formal and non-formal education systems, differences were found with respect to thrill-seeking personality, familial closeness, independence from peers, perceived difficulty in purchasing drugs in the community, and exposure to drug information via personal con-tacts, significantly at the level of .05. No significant differences were found among other variables. There were differences between Buddhist and Muslim youths with respect to attitude toward drugs, independence from peers, perceived difficulty in purchasing drugs in the community, perceived diffi-culty in purchasing drugs at school and in the immediate surroundings, and exposure to drug infor-mation via personal contacts, significantly at the level of .05. No significant differences were found among other variables. On...