A violent state-sponsored "war on drugs" is jeopardizing Thailand's long struggle to become one of Southeast Asia's leading rights-respecting democracies. Officially launched in February 2003, the government crackdown has resulted in the unexplained killing of more than 2,000 persons, the arbitrary arrest or blacklisting of several thousand more, and the endorsement of extreme violence by government officials at the highest levels. In the process, Thailand's fight against human immunodefiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), for which it has received international praise, has been severely undermined by a climate of fear that has driven injection drug users, in particular, underground.
