Urban Health Research Initiative, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ; Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
PLoS Med. 2013 Dec;10(12):e1001570; discussion e1001570. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001570. Epub 2013 Dec 10.
Despite Thailand's commitment to treating people who use drugs as "patients" not "criminals," Thai authorities continue to emphasize criminal law enforcement for drug control. In 2003, Thailand's drug war received international criticism due to extensive human rights violations. However, few studies have since investigated the impact of policing on drug-using populations. Therefore, we sought to examine experiences with policing among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Bangkok, Thailand, between 2008 and 2012.
Between July 2011 and June 2012, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 42 community-recruited PWID participating in the Mitsampan Community Research Project in Bangkok. Interviews explored PWID's encounters with police during the past three years. Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis was conducted to document the character of PWID's experiences with police. Respondents indicated that policing activities had noticeably intensified since rapid urine toxicology screening became available to police. Respondents reported various forms of police misconduct, including false accusations, coercion of confessions, excessive use of force, and extortion of money. However, respondents were reluctant to report misconduct to the authorities in the face of social and structural barriers to seeking justice. Respondents' strategies to avoid police impeded access to health care and facilitated transitions towards the misuse of prescribed pharmaceuticals. The study's limitations relate to the transferability of the findings, including the potential biases associated with the small convenience sample.
This study suggests that policing in Bangkok has involved injustices, human rights abuses, and corruption, and policing practices in this setting appeared to have increased PWID's vulnerability to poor health through various pathways. Novel to this study are findings pertaining to the use of urine drug testing by police, which highlight the potential for widespread abuse of this emerging technology. These findings raise concern about ongoing policing practices in this setting.
尽管泰国承诺将吸毒者视为“病人”而非“罪犯”，但其当局仍继续强调以刑法来控制毒品。2003 年，由于广泛的侵犯人权行为，泰国的禁毒战争受到国际社会的批评。然而，此后很少有研究调查执法对吸毒人群的影响。因此，我们试图研究 2008 年至 2012 年间泰国曼谷注射吸毒者（PWID）与警察打交道的经历。
2011 年 7 月至 2012 年 6 月期间，在曼谷 Mitsampan 社区研究项目中，对 42 名社区招募的 PWID 进行了半结构式深入访谈。访谈内容探讨了过去三年中 PWID 与警察的遭遇。采访的音频记录被逐字转录，然后进行主题分析，以记录 PWID 与警察打交道的特点。受访者表示，自从警察可以进行快速尿液毒物筛查以来，警察的执法活动明显加强。受访者报告了各种形式的警察不当行为，包括虚假指控、强迫认罪、过度使用武力和勒索钱财。然而，由于在寻求正义方面存在社会和结构性障碍，受访者不愿向当局报告不当行为。受访者为避免警察而采取的策略阻碍了他们获得医疗保健，并促使他们过渡到滥用规定的药物。该研究的局限性在于研究结果的可转移性，包括与小便利样本相关的潜在偏见。
这项研究表明，曼谷的警察工作涉及不公正、侵犯人权和腐败行为，这种做法似乎通过多种途径增加了 PWID 健康状况不佳的脆弱性。本研究的新颖之处在于发现了警察使用尿液药物检测，这突显了这种新兴技术广泛滥用的可能性。这些发现引发了对该地区当前警察执法工作的关注。
