TOKYO: Once forecast to become the world’s biggest economy, Japan slipped below Germany last year to fourth place, official data showed on Thursday (Feb 15), although India is projected to leapfrog both later this decade. Despite growing 1.9 per cent, Japan’s nominal 2023 gross domestic product in dollar terms wasContinue Reading
Economy minister Yoshitaka Shindo stressed the need to achieve solid wage growth to underpin consumption, which he described as “lacking momentum” due to rising prices.
“Our understanding is that the BOJ looks comprehensively at various data, including consumption, and risks to the economy in guiding monetary policy,” he told a news conference after the data’s release, when asked about the impact on BOJ policy.
Japan’s nominal GDP stood at US$4.21 trillion in 2023, falling below US$4.46 trillion for Germany to rank as the world’s fourth-largest economy, the data showed.
“The overtaking … in size in dollar terms owes a lot to the recent collapse in the yen. Japan’s real GDP has actually outperformed Germany’s since 2019,” said Fitch Ratings economist Brian Coulton.
Germany’s heavily export-dependant manufacturers have been hit particularly hard by soaring energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Europe’s biggest economy has also been hampered by the European Central Bank raising interest rates in the eurozone as well as uncertainty over its budget and chronic shortages of skilled labour.
Japan is also heavily reliant on exports, in particular cars, although the weak yen – making exports cheaper – has helped big firms like Toyota offset weakness in key markets such as China.
But it is suffering more than Germany in terms of worker shortages as its population falls and birth rates remain low, and economists expect the gap between the two economies to widen.
“Like Japan, Germany’s population has been declining, but it has nevertheless achieved steady economic growth,” said Toshihiro Nagahama, economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
“This is because, especially since the 2000s, the government authorities in Germany have been actively implementing policies to create an environment that makes it easier for companies to operate in the country,” he said.
During its boom years of the 1970s and ’80s, some projected that Japan would become the world’s biggest economy.
But the catastrophic bursting of Japan’s asset bubble in the early 1990s led to several “lost decades” of economic stagnation and deflation.
When in 2010 Japan was overtaken as number two by Asian rival China – whose economy is now around four times larger – it prompted major soul-searching.
While largely a product of the yen’s slide, falling behind Germany will still be a blow to Japan’s self-esteem and add to the pressure on unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
More humiliation is to come with booming India projected to overtake Japan in 2026 and Germany in 2027 in terms of output – although not in GDP per capita – according to the International Monetary Fund.
Germany and Japan “are shrinking in terms of contribution to global growth in favour of faster-growing ones … because their productivity is already very high and it is very hard to increase it”, said Natixis economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero.
“Of course, both Germany and Japan could take measures to mitigate this. The most obvious one is allowing for more immigration or increasing the fertility rate,” she told AFP.
Japan “has not made progress in raising its own growth potential”, Japanese financial daily the Nikkei said in a recent editorial.
“This situation should be taken as a wake-up call to accelerate neglected economic reforms.”
In their campaign platform, Mr Prabowo and Mr Gibran pledged to uphold Mr Jokowi’s policies, emphasising “continuity” as the cornerstone of their political agenda.
Mr Jokowi’s influence would persist in a Prabowo administration via his eldest son, Mr Gibran. As the vice president, Mr Gibran’s role would be pivotal in shaping policy decisions, ensuring that Mr Prabowo’s administration remains under Mr Jokowi’s oversight.
Mr Prabowo’s priorities align closely with Mr Jokowi’s emphasis on advancing value-added manufacturing, expanding infrastructure, and developing the new capital, Nusantara. However, certain campaign promises, such as a free school lunch programme, should be taken with a grain of salt because they are unlikely to be financially viable and would potentially strain the state budget.
Under Mr Prabowo, Indonesia would continue to court foreign investment to foster economic growth. Mr Prabowo is likely to strengthen trade and investment ties with China, building on the groundwork laid by Mr Jokowi over the past decade.
However, closer economic cooperation with China will not come at the expense of weakened ties with other countries. Like his predecessors, Mr Prabowo would not compromise Indonesia’s foreign policy principle of non-alignment. He would continue to engage with all countries, as long as there are political and economic benefits coming from the cooperation.
EPA-EFE/REX/ShutterstockJapan has unexpectedly fallen into a recession after its economy shrank for two quarters in a row.
The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by a worse-than-expected 0.4% in the last three months of 2023, compared to a year earlier.
It came after the economy shrank by 3.3% in the previous quarter.
The figures from Japan’s Cabinet Office also indicate that the country may have also lost its position as the world’s third-largest economy to Germany.
Economists had expected the new data to show that Japan’s GDP grew by more than 1% in the fourth quarter of last year.
The latest figures were the first reading of Japan’s economy growth for the period and could still be revised.
In October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that Germany was likely to overtake Japan as the world’s third-largest economy when measured in US dollars.
The IMF will only declare a change in its rankings once both countries have published the final versions of their economic growth figures. It began publishing data comparing economies in 1980.
Economist Neil Newman told the BBC that the latest figures show that Japan’s economy was worth about $4.2tn (£3.3tn) in 2023, while Germany’s was $4.4tn.
This was due to the weakness of the Japanese currency against the dollar and that if the yen recovers, the country could regain the number three spot, Mr Newman added.
At a press conference in Tokyo this month, the IMF’s deputy head, Gita Gopinath, also said an important reason for Japan potentially slipping in the rankings was the yen falling by about 9% against the US dollar last year.
However, the weakness of the yen has helped to boost the share prices of some of Japan’s biggest companies as it makes the country’s exports, such as cars, cheaper in overseas markets.
This week, Tokyo’s main stock index, the Nikkei 225, crossed the 38,000 mark for the first time since 1990, when a collapse in property prices triggered an economic crisis. The Nikkei 225’s record high of 38,915.87 was set on 29 December 1989.
The latest GDP data may also mean that the country’s central bank may further delay a much-anticipated decision to raise the cost of borrowing.
The Bank of Japan introduced a negative interest rate in 2016 as it tried to boost spending and investment.
Negative rates make the yen less attractive to global investors, which has pushed down the currency’s value.
SINGAPORE: Singapore has maintained its growth forecast for 2024 at a range of 1 to 3 per cent, as data on Thursday (Feb 15) showed the economy growing slightly slower than expected last year.
The economy expanded by 1.1 per cent in 2023, a whisker below earlier government estimates of 1.2 per cent, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry in a quarterly report.
For the final quarter of last year, gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.2 per cent year-on-year, lower than the projection of 2.8 per cent but accelerating from the 1 per cent growth in the third quarter.
On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted basis, the economy expanded by 1.2 per cent, also missing an earlier forecast of 1.7 per cent, but picking up speed from the 1 per cent growth in the previous quarter.
Laying out why it chose to maintain its growth forecast for 2024, MTI noted that Singapore’s external demand outlook has “remained largely unchanged” since its last assessment in November.
Growth in the advanced economies, such as the United States and the Eurozone, is set to slow in the first half of the year, mainly due to continued tight financial conditions, before recovering gradually in line with an expected easing of monetary policy.
On the other hand, regional economies are expected to see a pick-up in growth, partly supported by the turnaround in global electronics demand.
Beijing has expressed its opposition after media reports said the European Union is going to sanction some Chinese companies that have shipped dual-use products to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that it is aware of the media reports, which said the EU will announce its sanctions against dozens of companies on February 24 – the day that marks the two-year anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“China firmly opposes illegal sanctions or ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ against China on the grounds of cooperation between China and Russia,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Ministry did not hold its regular media briefings this week due to the Chinese New Year holidays.
Citing a 91-page document it obtained, Bloomberg reported on February 8 that the EU has proposed to sanction 55 companies and more than 60 individuals and accuse them of supporting Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. But the report, for legal reasons, did not name the companies.
Other media reports said some of the companies that will be curbed are based in Hong Kong, Serbia, India and Turkey. They said three companies are in mainland China and four others are in Hong Kong.
If adopted, it would be the first time the EU has imposed restrictions on companies in mainland China since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The sanctions package would be the 13th since the invasion. The EU has so far sanctioned more than 600 companies, most of which are based in Russia.
On Wednesday, the EU, the United States and the United Kingdom held a meeting in Brussels to discuss how to ensure Moscow could not get around existing restrictions.
In a Beijing meeting on December 7 last year, European Council chief Charles Michel requested Xi to immediately deal with 13 companies involved in supplying Russia with dual-use goods. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said China should prevent any attempts by Russia to undermine the impact of sanctions.
“Is the EU trying to ban Chinese firms from cooperating with Russia? There is no need for Chinese companies to implement the EU sanctions against Russia,” a Jiangxi-based military commentator using the pen name “Snow wolf” says in an article published last December.
He said Chinese firms have the freedoms and rights to choose to cooperate with Russian counterparts while all these partnerships are done in accordance with international law.
“Stopping China from cooperating with Russia will not help resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflicts, but will only benefit the EU and the US,” he said, adding that the EU should stop providing military assistance to Ukraine before blaming China.
On February 8, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call that both China and Russia should resolutely oppose interference in internal affairs by external forces.
He said both sides should pursue close strategic coordination and defend the sovereignty, security and development interests of their respective countries.
In May 2021, the EU decided to set aside the discussion of the China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) over human rights issues in China’s Xinjiang region. Beijing has tried to push forward the resumption of the negotiation since then.
Last April, French President Emmanuel Macron met Xi in Beijing while Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao also met his counterparts in Paris. However, Macron told the media that it’s not the time to restart the CAI negotiation.
He also said in May 2023 that Moscow was becoming subservient to China as it had lost access to the Baltic after Sweden and Finland decided to join NATO.
Macron’s comments came after the European Commission’s von der Leyen called on Europe to reassess its diplomatic and economic relations with China.
Some commentators said the souring relations between the EU and China will make it more difficult for both sides to return to the negotiation table for the CAI deal. They said Beijing has already changed its strategy and tried to hold talks with European countries individually.
Read: Europeans demand China quit aiding Putin in Ukraine
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3
Dalibor Rohac, a scholar from the American Enterprise Institute writing in the London Spectator, says that Poland should have nuclear weapons.
Rohac claims “When it comes to Trump-proofing the security of Eastern Europe, few measures would be as effective as arming the largest country of the region – Poland – with nuclear weapons.”
A similar argument could be put forward for South Korea and Taiwan. Nuclear weapons for South Korea would match the nuclear missiles in the hands of North Korea. Taiwan, with nuclear weapons, could offset China’s nuclear threat to the island.
Does any of this make sense?
In past years the United States has strongly opposed the proliferation of nuclear weapons by other countries, with exceptions made for the UK and France. The UK “shares” its nuclear arsenal with the United States. France has its own nuclear deterrent, the Force de Frappe (sometimes called the Force de Dissuasion).
Israel, a US ally but not a NATO member, does not admit it has nuclear weapons, but Israel allegedly has nuclear-armed Jericho missiles, nuclear gravity bombs and, more recently, submarine nuclear-armed cruise missiles.
From time to time the US has tried to cut off Israel from nuclear technology and force it to open up about its nuclear development facility in Dimona, in Israel’s Negev desert. Israel neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear weapons and, in the past, has said it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
The Dimona complex has recently been expanded.
The US reportedly halted the nuclear programs in South Korea and Taiwan. When the US announced it would reduce its presence in Korea and pull US troops out of the country in July 1970, South Korea sought to get plutonium from France to build atomic weapons. In 1975 the United States persuaded France not to deliver plutonium to South Korea and the US took other steps, including access to long range rocket technology, to force South Korea to halt its nuclear program.
Reviving discussion of a prospective nuclear-armed South now are several factors:
There’s interest in the South in obtaining nuclear weapons, even though South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has walked back comments supporting renewed efforts for South Korea to get such weapons.
Taiwan is a more complicated matter. In 1972 Richard Nixon ordered US nuclear weapons removed from Taiwan’s Tainan Air Base, where they had been stored. This was a follow-up to the US rapprochement with China that started in July 1971 when Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to China. A year later, in 1972, Nixon himself would go to China.
In effect, the US removed its nuclear deterrent from Taiwan, and took other steps de-recognizing the island. The Nixon administration, had Congress not intervened, would have left Taiwan to its fate. This has left Taiwan second-guessing whether the United States would come to its aid in case of a Chinese invasion of the island.
Taiwan had long sought nuclear weapons and had a secret program going back at least to 1967, mainly carried out by the Taiwan Institute for Nuclear Energy and Research. In 1973 and 1974 Taiwan bought a significant amount of uranium from white-ruled South Africa, which had its own nuclear program.
Pressured by the United States, Taiwan agreed to dismantle its nuclear program, but the program secretly continued. In 1980 Taiwan ordered 4,000 tons of uranium metal from South Africa. Taiwan ended its effort to build nuclear weapons in 1987 because it could not produce a small enough weapon that was deliverable against China.
In effect the United States wanted to control nuclear weapons and not have its allies, other than France and the UK, have independent programs.
Nonetheless, Italy was fairly far advanced on its own, independent nuclear program (Italian scientists including Enrico Fermi contributed significantly to the Manhattan Project in the United States).
Similarly, West Germany was also working on its own program, although claims of coordination between France and Germany on nuclear weapons have been debunked.
The US was able to persuade these countries not to move forward unilaterally. Not only did the US put its own nuclear weapons in both countries, including gravity bombs and missiles, but it put in place nuclear sharing agreements with Italy, Germany and others.
Despite domestic opposition in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, the US was able to place 108 Pershing-2 missiles in West Germany at Neu-Ulm, Mutlangen and Neckarsulm. These missiles were designed to counter Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles, but they were dismantled after the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement with the USSR went into effect in 1988.
In October, 2018 President Donald Trump notified Russia the US was withdrawing from the INF Treaty because Russia wasn’t complying with INF missile restrictions. With the US on its way out, Russia ended its own INF participation in 2019.
US nuclear cooperation has not been offered in Eastern Europe or to other new NATO members. One of them, Sweden, had produced a nuclear bomb in 1965. It was planning to produce four more. But opposition to nuclear weapons grew in Sweden and, by 1967, Sweden ended its bomb program.
Ukraine is not yet a member of NATO although it is on track to become one eventually. In 1992, after Ukraine became independent, it agreed to have Russia remove its nuclear weapons from Ukrainian territory.
Russia in late 2023 deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. According to Belarus, these weapons were put there to “deter Poland.”
Behind the Belarus deployment was Russia’s intention to match the alleged potential deployment of US nuclear weapons to Poland. Russia has said it believes that the US has nuclear weapons in Poland, or ones that could quickly be put there as part of the AEGIS Ashore air defense system.
The AEGIS vertical launch system supports air defense interceptor missiles, but it also can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles. The US retired its Tomahawk nuclear warheads after the INF Treaty was signed, but the Russians apparently believe the Tomahawk could be turned into a nuclear delivery system easily.
This potential, in Russian eyes, probably justifies the Belarus deployment as a Russian countermeasure, although there may be other causes for Putin’s action.
There are calls in the United States to bring back the nuclear Tomahawk.
The Russians also think the US may move other nuclear delivery systems to Poland, including F-35 fighter jets that can drop nuclear gravity bombs. Russia is aware from western reports that NATO nuclear sharing will include the F-35.
Poland has already asked the United States to station its nuclear weapons on Polish territory but has been officially rebuffed. Polish security experts and former generals want Poland to get its own nuclear weapons, seeing too much risk otherwise.
At the present time, the EU is spending billions on arming and supporting Ukraine and urging its member states to supply weapons including fighter aircraft, artillery systems, and other war fighting material. Poland has energetically backed the EU initiative, and acts as the major staging area for Ukraine-bound armaments.
Both the EU and NATO fear Ukraine could lose the war with Russia, or the war could spill-over to Poland. With increasingly empty conventional weapons’ arsenals in Europe and the United States, the nuclear option looks more attractive to many. Having a nuclear deterrent, in the view of some Poles, would give Russian leaders second thoughts about launching an attack on Poland and, consequently, on NATO.
There is fear among European elites over the looming election bid of Donald Trump, compounded by his negative statements on NATO – which he called “busted.” Will Europe be cast adrift without US protection? Will the US nuclear umbrella, the bedrock of European security, disappear? Should Europe be prepared for its own defense without the United States?
These are hard questions for Europeans and for the United States. If the US under either Biden or a future Trump presidency decides to stay the course in Europe, nuclear weapons deployment will have to be on the agenda. Otherwise current-day European leaders may go down the nuclear road on their own.
Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.
In December, 2018 I wrote an article for Asia Times discussing Russia’s Avangard fractional orbiting nuclear weapon system.
Today’s revelation suggesting that Russia intends to deploy a space based nuclear weapon has elicited demands that the Biden administration tell the American people what the intelligence reports say – and that the information should all be declassified.
We now await a decision on this by Biden’s National Security Council.
Jake Sullivan, the President’s national security advisor, is preparing to brief members of Congress on the intelligence committees. At the same time it is reported that all members of Congress have been informed in messages. Exactly what the administration’s information is, and how big a threat we face, is not yet clear.
If, in fact, we are speaking of the Avangard, Russia’s hypersonic, fractional orbiting system, or anything similar, then it is a threat the United States should have taken seriously previously and should have put in place programs to counter it.
There also may be an espionage aspect to the story. The Russians have arrested a number of top scientists involved in hypersonic weapon research. At least one of them died after being apprehended. In addition, one or more of them are implicated in sharing missile technology with a US defense company.
Probably a lot more is involved, but we don’t have much information about what happened in Russia.
Meanwhile, the 2018 article in Asia Times may prove helpful. You can read it below.
One modification: the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty referred to was cancelled by the United States in 2018 and the Russians pulled out of the treaty in 2019.
by Stephen Bryen
ASIA TIMES, December 29, 2018
Russia, China and the United States, although the US is farther behind, are all working on hypersonic weapons – weapons that fly so fast that current technology has difficulty picking them up on radar and even bigger problems trying to defeat them.
Now President Vladimir Putin claims Russia is getting ready to deploy in 2019 an intercontinental ballistic missile that can fly up to 20 times the speed of sound, called Avangard. The missile if it performs as advertised is a game changer because there is no missile defense system that can intercept a warhead flying to the target at hypersonic speeds.
How important is this? Today the US has only a few deployed missile defense systems and none of them are at all capable of defeating a nuclear attack from Russia or China. The reason for that is two-fold:
Firstly US missile defenses are not yet reliable interceptors (even in tests where the incoming missiles are neither deploying decoys or maneuvering).
Secondly there are too few interceptors (in the form of THAAD, PAC-3, Ground-Based Interceptor or land or sea-based SM-3s) to deal with mass missile attacks.
Consequently the US has provided some missile and air defense systems to allies and friends (such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel), but mostly designed to deal with small scale attacks and focused on terminal air defenses (that is, killing the incoming missile while it is actually close to its target overhead).
One of the reasons why Israel developed its own Arrow 3 interceptor is to be able to kill enemy missiles in the exo-atmosphere – that is, capable of a missile kill outside the earth’s atmosphere, as an incoming missile hit overhead (in what’s called the endo-atmosphere) risks crashing into populated centers the way SCUD rockets did during the First Gulf war and as Houthi (Iran) rockets did in Riyadh, Taif and elsewhere.
US strategic doctrine has been torn between two opposing theories of what to do about missile threats.
In simplest terms the most pervasive operational theory has been “mutually assured destruction” or MAD. MAD posits that if an enemy attacks, the US will launch its own strategic missiles and bombs – some of them deep underground in hardened silos, others aboard strategic bombers and still others launched by missile-firing submarines (“boomers”). Taken together, the US calls this the strategic triad.
The other approach is not to rely on MAD as a sufficient deterrent but to build missile defenses.
Mostly this has been justified as a means to deal with rogue states or errant missile launches against the United States or its allies. Even so, missile defenses are one of the sore spots in US defenses, because all the programs have been controversial and either under serious delays (problems in testing) or underfunded.
MAD proponents, and Russian propaganda have typically attacked US programs like the Ground Based Interceptor and THAAD as intending to give the US a “first strike” capability.
While making such claims Russia and China both have continued to pursue systems that offer “break out” from the constraints of MAD and to get out from under arms control agreements.
The latest Russian gambit to deploy Avangard directly undermines all strategic arms agreements because it is a first strike threat when measured against current technology that could defeat such missiles.
The heart of all arms control efforts is to aim to stabilize the nuclear arms balance and control or eliminate systems that fall outside of the ambit of the balance. Thus for example the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) had a major purpose of removing high risk, hard-to-intercept systems such as Russia’s SS-20 and the US Pershing II (both of which threatened Europe and European-Russia).
The Trump administration has served notice it wants to cancel the INF because of Russian “cheating,” but it is still too soon to be sure that will be the final outcome.
Meanwhile Avangard and surely others in the same class of hypersonic weapons are a direct challenge both to MAD doctrine and to missile defenses. They undermine in a fundamental manner all US-Russia arms control agreements.
A dangerous consequence of all this is that Avangard will give Russian military commanders the idea they can strike first and “win” whatever conflict they may get into with the United States and NATO. Given that no one can be sure about Russia’s future stability, this is a huge threat and risk.
Avangard-like weapons are not so far away in Asia either. China is surely watching how the US will respond to Russia’s initiative on hypersonic weapons to see if Avangard-like weapons can be subjected to missile control agreements in future. The still very bad relations between Russia and the United States suggest any solution is far off. Meanwhile Avangard will wreak havoc on existing arms control measures and destabilize the nuclear-weapons arena.
Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. The new top on this article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.
PUBLISHED : 15 Feb 2024 at 05:46
The Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) is considering reducing the maximum number of methamphetamine pills that individuals can have in their possession without facing criminal charges from five pills to three, ONCB secretary-general Pol Lt Gen Phanurat Lukboon said on Wednesday.
The move came amid a widespread backlash to the five-pill limit set by the Ministry of Public Health, which came into effect on Feb 9.
Under the new rule, individuals arrested while in possession of no more than five methamphetamine pills, or 300 milligrammes of heroin, won’t face criminal charges — instead, they will be considered drug users who need to be rehabilitated.
In the past, even those who possessed relatively small amounts of drugs would be prosecuted and the charges added their criminal record, affecting their future prospects, he said.
Pol Lt Gen Phanurat said the office will consider reducing the limit to three pills in about three months, saying the ONCB needs to see the impact of the five-pill limit before amending the rule.
“If the ONCB finds the number of those arrested as drug users spikes relative to the number of those prosecuted as drug dealers [in three months’ time], then the new limit of three pills will be submitted for approval by the ONCB’s board,” he said.
Separately, the Narcotics Suppression Bureau commissioner, Pol Lt Gen Kirisak Tantinwachai, said that while the new rule paves the way for those who are arrested with no more than five pills to escape criminal charges, individuals who have a known history of selling drugs could still be charged if authorities can prove an intent to sell.
Pol Lt Gen Kirisak agreed with Pol Lt Gen Phanurat’s idea, saying the limit should be reduced to three pills if, within the first three months, police arrest more meth users than vendors.
Under the new law, those who are caught with five pills or less immediately will be sent to treatment centres without having to go through court, unless they are found to be drug dealers.
They are required to report after treatment. Failure to do so will result in them being charged and arrested.
PUBLISHED : 15 Feb 2024 at 05:46
The Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) is considering reducing the maximum number of methamphetamine pills that individuals can have in their possession without facing criminal charges from five pills to three, ONCB secretary-general Pol Lt Gen Phanurat Lukboon said on Wednesday.
The move came amid a widespread backlash to the five-pill limit set by the Ministry of Public Health, which came into effect on Feb 9.
Under the new rule, individuals arrested while in possession of no more than five methamphetamine pills, or 300 milligrammes of heroin, won’t face criminal charges — instead, they will be considered drug users who need to be rehabilitated.
In the past, even those who possessed relatively small amounts of drugs would be prosecuted and the charges added their criminal record, affecting their future prospects, he said.
Pol Lt Gen Phanurat said the office will consider reducing the limit to three pills in about three months, saying the ONCB needs to see the impact of the five-pill limit before amending the rule.
“If the ONCB finds the number of those arrested as drug users spikes relative to the number of those prosecuted as drug dealers [in three months’ time], then the new limit of three pills will be submitted for approval by the ONCB’s board,” he said.
Separately, the Narcotics Suppression Bureau commissioner, Pol Lt Gen Kirisak Tantinwachai, said that while the new rule paves the way for those who are arrested with no more than five pills to escape criminal charges, individuals who have a known history of selling drugs could still be charged if authorities can prove an intent to sell.
Pol Lt Gen Kirisak agreed with Pol Lt Gen Phanurat’s idea, saying the limit should be reduced to three pills if, within the first three months, police arrest more meth users than vendors.
Under the new law, those who are caught with five pills or less immediately will be sent to treatment centres without having to go through court, unless they are found to be drug dealers.
They are required to report after treatment. Failure to do so will result in them being charged and arrested.
