Twelve teenage students and a separate group of 10 temple novices have been arrested in separate raids and sent to drug rehabilitation programmes, local authorities said.
Both raids, in Uttaradit’s Muang district and Buri Ram’s Non Dindaeng district, followed complaints by frustrated residents.
The students, nine young men and three women aged 16-19, were rounded up at a dormitory in Muang municipality in Uttaradit on Tuesday night. Some of them were still in uniform when arrested.
All the students admitted to taking methamphetamine and marijuana and tested positive for drugs. They were sent to Muang police station for questioning, where they agreed to enter a drug rehabilitation programme. (continues below)
In Buri Ram, 10 novices aged 13-19 years were forced to leave the monkhood after local authorities barged in on them taking drugs inside a monastery’s dhamma teaching school.
They tested positive for drugs and admitted to substance abuse, authorities said.
According to the teenagers, they bought supplies from a former monk who had been nabbed recently. They had just raised 4,500 baht between them to buy 30 more methamphetamine pills, but the plan was thwarted by their arrest.
They were expelled from the monkhood and sent to a drug rehabilitation centre.
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