Turning Up the Heat

When Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to eliminate illegal drugs from "every square inch of the country" by Apr. 30, listeners could be forgiven their doubts. This was the man, after all, who once pledged to untangle Bangkok's perpetually snarled roads. Traffic, it turns out, is still a problem, but early results of this new drug war suggest that traffickers are becoming an endangered species. During the first week of February, the police announced that 9,232 alleged dealers were arrested, and nearly 7,000 more surrendered. Authorities seized upwards of 41 million amphetamine pills. It...