The Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) has pushed forward the Safe Mekong project and a state policy ensuring a drug-free community to suppress narcotics in 2017, the National News Bureau of Thailand (NNT) reported.

NNT said ONCB Secretary General Sirinya Sitthichai revealed that the 2017 plan for preventing and suppressing drugs will continue in order to intensively intercept drugs in the country both internally and externally.

The drug busting unit consists of authorities from China, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia who are working together under the operation called Safe Mekong. The authorities will be patrolling areas with records of drug trafficking in search of narcotics across the Mekong Sub-region.

The member countries have also agreed to exchange arrest warrants against drug suspects of their respective countries along with the suspects’ information.

Located in the joint border area of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, the Golden Triangle is among the world’s three largest drug-producing sites. Thailand is seeking cooperation from ASEAN nations to remove the Golden Triangle from the world’s list of narcotic production.

The Thai government will seek ASEAN members’ approval to include the issue in the new ASEAN operation plan for the next 10 years.

“We have expanded the Safe Mekong project from the northern region into the central and southern regions of the Mekong River, which are the northeastern part of Thailand,” said Secretary General Sirinya.

“We recently had a tri-party meeting, consisting of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, on securing areas in the Golden Triangle or patrolling the Mekong River. We will collectively set up checkpoints to intercept the transport of chemicals and drugs. There will be 20 checkpoints in these three countries,” he said.

Regarding internal drug suppression measures, the ONCB will operate through its local centers for drug prevention and suppression located in border areas of the northern, northeastern, and southern regions.

The objective is to intercept substance used for narcotics production simultaneously along with implementing a state policy on building a drug-free community in 81,905 designated communities. The latter initiative will be implemented through provincial drug suppression centers and operated in accordance with existing problems in terms of prevention, suppression, and rehabilitation.

Joint drug bust to be more extensive - Thai PBS English News