Yaba, a crazy pill or a pill for crazy people?
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Yaba (also known as Yaa baa, Ya baa or Yah bah; in Thai: ยาบ้า, which literally means 'crazy medicine'), is a popular drug that is widely used in Thailand is available.
This, despite the very severe penalties (including the death penalty) for the possession and/or use of Yaba. It is therefore a persistent and malignant growth in Thai society.
Methamphetamine
Yaba, is methamphetamine in the form of a tablet. It is similar to speed but has a more powerful effect. It is a synthetic drug that causes a strong euphoric feeling and is extremely addictive. The Yaba pills contain 25 to 35 mg of methamphetamine and 45 to 65 mg of caffeine. The tablets are available in Thailand in a variety of flavors (including grape, orange and vanilla) and have bright colors (usually red-orange or green). Various logos (generally “WY” or “R”) adorn the Yaba tablets. Yaba looks like candy. Because of the sweet taste and appearance, Yaba also has many young users in Thailand. Sometimes it is deliberately offered to children as candy. Drug dealers try to expand the customer base in this way.
Positive Effects
Yaba is a potent central nervous system stimulant with a longer lasting effect than that of cocaine. This is because cocaine metabolizes faster in the body than methamphetamine. Yaba is primarily a stimulant drug. It gives confidence and alertness. In addition, the energy level and endurance will increase considerably. It reduces appetite, as well as the desire to sleep.
Negative effects
The use of Yaba causes a faster heartbeat and breathing. Blood pressure and body temperature also rise. Chronic use can lead to a 'methamphetamine psychosis', resulting in paranoia, hallucinations, irritability, aggressiveness, mood swings, egocentrism and skin picking. All this is also reinforced by lack of sleep. Yaba users suffer from insomnia.
Furthermore, Yaba has an anorectic effect; meaning that the user loses interest in food, this quickly leads to malnutrition.
Use of Yaba in Thailand
Yaba has been used in Thailand for over thirty years. In the beginning by truck drivers who took it to stay alert and to be able to drive longer. In the 90s, Yaba also became popular among Thai factory and agricultural workers, soon followed by prostitutes. In 1996, the Thai government decided to equate Yaba with hard drugs. For users and traders, this could even lead to the death penalty. Despite this, Yaba is still very popular in Thailand. It is cheap to produce and the profits from trading are attractive. Often users deal to pay for the addiction.
Murders and Violence by Yaba
Because heavy users eventually develop serious psychological complaints such as psychoses, hallucinations and paranoia, many murders in Thailand are associated with Yaba use. The stories are well known. For example, a Thai police officer was murdered by his mother. Her explanation was that the son had turned into a many-headed monster who wanted to attack her.
In the Thai sex industry, bargirls use Yaba to work longer hours and dance the night away. Because Yaba counteracts the feeling of hunger, they remain slim and therefore 'attractive' to potential customers.
Mopping with the tap open
Yaba is cheap, easy to get and tastes like candy. It is therefore an 'low-threshold drug'. Drug Enforcement officials in Thailand say they are unable to stem the massive influx from neighboring Myanmar.
Yaba will continue to be a major problem in Thailand now and in the future.
Thailand has the strictest regime when it comes to drugs and yet it is not under control. Maybe time for a different approach
I think it's a madman's pill when the doctor prescribes it. You must be crazy to trust a doctor like that.
I think the strictest regime used to be. Jaba is now a real plague especially in Isan. Many police officers in Isaan are related to relatives and turn a blind eye or are dealers themselves or take bribes. This is the biggest problem. And this is so with everything in Thailand. Burning down rice fields is also not allowed, but when I drive from Phon Sai to Suvannaphum I sometimes drive through the smoke 60% of the time. Even if the police should verbalize, they don't.
According to my info, it is usually made in Myanmar under the supervision/protection of the army who earn a lot from it….
Methamphetamine is produced throughout Myanmar's border region with Northern Thailand, Laos and China in areas controlled by the Myanmar military and in areas controlled by the armies of populations that are at war against the central government (or have a truce with the army/ Little is left of that truce now that the army is acting madly against its own bourgeoisie).
As a result of the war, the 'export channel' via Western Myanmar has been closed and all that stuff now enters the market via Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and China. Myanmar is the world leader for methamphetamine and number two worldwide for opium (after Afghanistan).
Another example that shows the difference between people. The makers and traders who care whether and what happens to their pills. Everything for the big money is their motto. The suffering it causes is there for everyone to see. We see it reflected in behavior or rather misbehavior, which sometimes go very far. The addiction rate among prostitutes is high compared to the vast majority of the population. There it is apparently necessary, at least in the minds of some of the prostitutes, to use alcohol and the other soft and hard drugs in order to be able to perform the work properly. What a wonderful profession that is and a wonderful life. A world to admire or to counter. I would know, but all kinds of drugs are a many-headed monster that roams around and makes a lot of money. The handful of people who supervise and combat this are totally unable to cope with this form of crime and there are even some, especially in Thailand, who live by the motto of if you can't beat them, you can also work with them and earn from it. Nothing is what it seems on this globe and it just goes on for the length of days.
I think that the fact that the government has always been tough on the use of weed, which can be produced for practically nothing in Thailand itself, has not helped to reduce the use of yaah baah.
Originally, Methamphetamine was known in Thailand as YaMa (horse medicine) because it would make you as strong as a horse.
The competent authorities felt that the name was too positive and proactively campaigned to change the name of the product to YaBa.
That was also successful, but the use has only increased.
The punishments may be severe, but I have the feeling that, especially here in Isan, there is little control by the police. They probably also take their grain with them. The village where I live has about 30.000 inhabitants and just over 120 (!!!) police officers. It seems to be a big problem here but I very rarely hear of anyone being caught. If this does happen, a 10.000 bath 'fine' will suffice. To whom it was paid again no one. Our neighbors in the back officially have a small vegetable stand and have built two houses in the last two years, bought three second-hand pickups and two pieces of land. Less than 200 meters live three to four policemen who know what is really going on and yet nothing happens.
Yaba is readily available in our tiny northern Thai village.
Where and and with whom is an open secret that even the only farrang knows.
A few years ago, 1 pill of Yaba cost 400 thb there. Today you buy that same pill for 2 thb.
It's the economy stupid 🙂
The social consequences are disastrous.
I know an electrician who works for “faifa”. The man climbs the electricity poles on yaba every day to hang between the wires. He flips regularly. Then the wife and children flee the house. Police are called in. They don't do anything. They let raging bull rage and smash the few household effects again.
Part of the village youth, pepped up by the pills, drives like crazy with the motosai, to death or lameness.
Hello Mark,
I think you are right. A pill costs almost nothing and an intelligent Thai can make them himself in the shed. It is therefore impossible to earn big money unless you have to produce millions. Got the impression that many yaba customers trade in it a bit too, at least in my village. I don't think you can use that for anything.
Our man who came to make the roof, according to my wife's brother, was also on the yaba.
He walked like a monkey on the steel beams and knew no fear.
My wife's son is also on yaba. Also the grandson.
They also sell that stuff to acquaintances.
Our piece of land outside the village is sometimes occupied by yaba users.
They are then out of the public eye.
My wife always advises me not to look at them, because she cannot vouch for the consequences, she says.
If you think jaba is something of the last decades, you are wrong.
It has been around since the late 1800s.
It is also known as “Hitler drug”
Hitler was also heavily addicted to it, and the kamikaze pilots of Japan were given the pills to take with them on their way to their deaths.
What an insane comparison. Methamphetamine is a major problem worldwide. Is also produced on a large scale in the Netherlands in addition to XTC. Weed and cocaine have nothing to do with that. Not to compare. Weed is legal in Thailand, and semi-legal in the Netherlands for about 50 years. And a Dutchman is now going to raise the issue of Thai speed, the Netherlands is much worse, for a long time. This is pedantry. Thais believe anything anyway, so they are victims, and the only solution is education, don't complain and do nothing.
Bart,
I must say that I see more addicts in one day in Isaan than in a month in the Netherlands.
It will depend on the environment.
My wife's son uses it, grandson too,
Our roof repairman uses it.
I disagree with your so-called crazy comparison.
Of course we also have a problem in the Netherlands, but not comparable to Thailand.