Fighting meth addiction with hard drugs
Thailand's justice minister believes "kratom," a leafy jungle stimulant, can help users kick their habi.
The legal status of kratom is now under review in Thailand. “There’s never been a single death associated with kratom,” said Pascal Tanguay, a program director with the Thailand offices of PSI, a Washington DC-based global health organization that promotes harm reduction among drug users. “People have been chewing this for thousands of years with no cases of overdose, psychosis, murder, violent crime. Never in all of recorded history.”
>
The 4×100 brew is a mixture of boiled kratom leaves, Coca-Cola and cheap cough syrup. Tanguay, who tried it while investigating kratom use for the Transnational Institute, said 4×100 brings on heavy drowsiness.
“Chewing the leaf made me feel like I’d had two cups of coffee,” he said. “Drinking the tea mixed with cough syrup put me to sleep very quickly. It was three in the afternoon … and I had difficulty keeping my eyes open.”
Read the full article.
Recent publications from Drugs and Democracy
Human rights and drug policyAn accessible but comprehensive primer on why TNI believes that human rights must be at the heart of any debate on drug control. |
Expert Seminar "Where next for Europe on drug policy reform?"Analysis of the new EU strategy on drugs and its action plan and discussion on ways to improve and innovate European drug policy. |
Working towards a legal coca marketModern use of the coca leaf in Argentina provides a series of examples that could contribute to dispelling many of the myths that have polarized debate about the subject over the last few years. |
Informal Drug Policy Dialogue 2013, WarsawThe tenth meeting of the Informal Drug Policy Dialogue series, organised by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Association Diogenis, took place in Warsaw, Poland, gathering over 35 NGO representatives, academics, policy makers and practitioners. |
