Young drug addicts in halfway homes increasingly are burning the horse tranquiliser ketamine to get high while appearing “clean” on required drug tests, Thailand’s top forensic scientist said.
"Of 22 youths whose hair was tested for drug abuse, 14 showed they turned to a narcotic that was not a methamphetamine, but ketamine, which is burnt and inhaled. It is the new trend that is raising concerns," Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, director-general of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, told a discussion on hair-based drug analysis in Bangkok Tuesday.
She said that such tests were carried out on the young drug offenders on probation who were released temporarily from halfway houses where their behaviour was observed following a drug arrest.
Normally officials of such homes cannot detect ketamine abuse because their instruments only detect methamphetamines, Khunying Porntip said. Hair-strand testing also has been used to detect marijuana, opiates and cocaine.
In the discussion that her institute organised together with the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection, she recommended hair drug tests as a solution. Hair drug tests could detect the abuse of as many as 20 narcotics for as long as a month back, she said.
However, Khunying Porntip admitted that hair-based drug tests were time-consuming and expensive, about 2,000 baht for a centimetre of hair.
The Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection reported that last year it handled 36,081 cases of juvenile offenders, 46% or 16,681 cases concerned drug abuse and the percentage was growing.