FDS Insight Magazine Aug - Oct 2022

35 place after a lengthy consideration process, which was led chiefly by the Ministry of Justice. The pathway to reform was significantly different to that of cannabis – not to mention, overshadowed by the cannabis reforms. However, in a region still marked by extremely cruel and inhumane responses to people engaged in drug- related activities, the reforms to Thailand’s criminal justice, health and economic systems resulting from the series of drug law changes represent a welcome change. Hopefully, the changes will become a model to look to for Thailand’s neighbours. But for now, uncertainties and concerns about the future shape of these reforms remain. G. Lai, newmandala.org (18/7/22) Afghanistan T ALIBAN ROUNDING UP ADDICTS FOR ‘ DETOX ’ CAMPS , AS DESPAIR AND POVERTY FUEL DRUG USE IN A FGHANISTAN An Afghan man addicted to drugs smokes heroin on the edge of a hill in Kabul.(AP Photo: E. Noroozi) undreds of men using heroin, opium and meth are strewn over a hillside above Kabul in tents or lying in the dirt. Some of them overdose, and quietly slip across the line from despair to death. ‘There’s a dead man next to you,’ someone tells me as I pick my way among them, taking pictures. ‘We buried someone over there earlier,’ another says further down. A man uses a plastic bottle to share heroin with an addicted dog.(AP Photo: E. Noroozi) The body of a dead drug user lies covered by a shawl under a bridge.(AP Photo: E. Noroozi) One man is face down in the mud, not moving. I shake him by the shoulder and ask if he is alive. He turns his head a bit, just half out of the mud, and whispers that he is. ‘You’re dying,’ I tell him. ‘Try to survive.’ ‘It’s fine,’ he says, his voice sounding exhausted. ‘It’s OK to die.’ He lifts his body a little. I give him some water, and someone gives him a H