Rise and Fall in Popularity in Thailand
Yaba tablets were sold at gas stations and commonly used by Thai truckers to stay awake. After many horrific long-distance bus accidents, they were outlawed by the Thai government in 1970. The deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's campaign from 2003 onwards to eliminate drug-trafficking has further helped to curtail widespread use, in particular, use of the drug by bus drivers is not as widespread as it was in 1980s.
As a result of the Thai government crackdown, restricted supply has had a huge effect on prices, further curtailing the popular use of Yaba. In 1999-2000, when buying a straw-full (around 20 pills) in Chiang Rai province, North Thailand, Yaba was sold for around ฿10 per pill and commonly used on the go-go circuit and by young 'MTV' clubbers. Retail prices have risen from 100–150 baht (US$3–4) to 250–450 baht per pill as a result of the crackdown, though it remains a popular party drug.
In 2000, Yaba was smuggled across the loose border with Burma and from the neighbouring Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces of Thailand. Illegal traffickers often marketed or 'promoted' their product by claiming that the pills contained up to 6% heroin. Rumour suggested it was produced by the corrupt personnel of Wa State Army in Burma.
Read more about this topic: Ya Ba
Famous quotes containing the words rise, fall and/or popularity:
“Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Such a set of tittle tattle, prittle prattle visitants! Oh Dear! I am so sick of the ceremony and fuss of these fall lall people! So much dressing—chitchat—complimentary nonsense—In short, a country town is my detestation. All the conversation is scandal, all the attention, dress, and almost all the heart, folly, envy, and censoriousness.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)