The curse of yaba
A few weeks ago Wi, one of our former students, and her boyfriend were arrested.
About 100 yaba tablets and some ice were found their apartment. Her boyfriend has 3 kids by another woman who was already in jail. The boyfriend was supporting the kids by drug dealing.
Wan called me the next day, asking me to go visit Wi at the police station. I arrived in the early afternoon to find Wan, her boyfriend, her mom and a friend waiting, along with Wi's 8 year-old daughter. While we were waiting, Wan's mother, a long-time drug user herself, told Wan she would like to find out who the turncoat was who alerted police to Wi's activities. I said that if we're going to play with stuff like that, we are the ones who are wrong. It's a bit late to blame someone else. The mother didn't respond.
When the visiting hour arrived, we filed into a narrow space along with a few others members visiting their own family members. We were separated from the lockup by steel bar doors about 5 feet apart. The lockup was evenly split with about 5 men and 5 women. None looked older than 25. Wi wore a tiny low-cut dress; her dreadlocked, tattooed boyfriend was shirtless. She was in tears.
I didn't catch a whole lot of the conversation. Listening to a second language in a noisy room with multiple simultaneous conversations requires concentration more than I am able to muster for more than a minute or two at a time. My attention was mostly on Wi's daughter, distraught at seeing her mother locked in a cage. There was a solid plate that she could just barely see over, so she was scrambling for a better view. I picked her up and held her for the rest of the visit.
“Don't cry now,” Wi called to her, in tears herself, which of course only made it worse.
Yaba, Thailand's most common drug, is a mix of mainly methamphetamine and caffeine with who knows what else thrown in by the labs that produce it in neighboring Burma. It is rampant among Bangkok's young, especially the poor who have little else to do. It is especially widely used by bar girls. Users tell me it doesn't produce a high to speak of--just suppresses the appetite, revs up your system and teaches your body to want more. It has tripped up several of our students, including some that have spent a lot of time with us and were making strides in their growth. June, whom I wrote about in the last post, is now finally at home with us detoxing.
If you are a drug counselor and would like to help train others, we would love to talk with you.
Wi will probably get several years. When she gets out her daughter may be a teenager.
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Reply #1 on : Wed June 18, 2008, 19:16:56
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Reply #2 on : Tue June 24, 2008, 21:54:19