This time it’s Thailand’s turn to demonstrate their commitment to the war on drugs by incinerating a great big massive bunch of them!
Over three tons of illicit narcotics were incinerated in Thailand today to mark the “Internation Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking” in a good, old fashioned drug bonfire. The drugs included 32 million tablets of methamphetamines weighing in at almost 3 tons.
Importantly, as the newspaper article mentions, there were lots of journalists as well as members of internation agencies and organisations on hand to witness the event. And there is really the crux of it. These ridiculous events are basically a public spectacle for cash strapped governments to demonstrate to the world that they are capable of taking orders in the war on drugs.
Coincidentally, the events also give politicians from aid-giving nations a little political capital to extol the success of their “hard on drugs” stance.
It’s almost a shame that capital is in the form of something so practically redundant.