ONCB controls "Legal High" in Thailand

BANGKOK, August 14 (TNA) - Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) has pledged to monitor and control "legal high", an ingredient in a number of "bath salt" mixes but faultily-used as a recreational drug in many countries. Vichet Puthaviriyakorn, Director of the ONCB’s Narcotics Analysis and Technical Services Institute, acknowledged on Wednesday, citing a recent warning statement issued by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), that new psychoactive substances (NPS), also described as "legal highs," have become a global issue, as the NPS, which have been used as ingredients of many products, have now been wrongly used by youths, through legal loopholes, as a new form of narcotics causing many people to have suffered from serious adverse reactions. According to the director, the UNODC report claimed that the drug has been widely used in the United States and the United Kingdom, though such the case has not yet been detected in Thailand. The director promised that his agency will keep monitoring to see whether seized narcotics containing NPS in order to timely regulate the use of NPS in products sold in Thailand. (TNA)