Blood in Bangkok Streets : A spate of killings raises questions about Thailand's drug war.

Ameena Bedil knows a thing or two about drug abuse. For three years she has watched methamphetamines, Thailand's most popular and troublesome drug, suck in 200 new users a year in her south Bangkok slum. Bedil runs an anti-drug association that labors to stop the pushers on her streets, but the 75-year- old grandmother also favors a more severe solution: kill them all. "If drug dealers die, it's no problem by me," she says. "These kind of people shouldn't be handled through the legal process. They don't deserve it."

Bedil is just one of millions of Thai voters who would like to see the drug problem exterminated, literally. Appealing to their frustrations, populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared an open war on drugs on Feb. 1, pledging to completely eradicate the scourge from Thailand within three months. A bloodbath has ensued, with more than 1,000 people having been killed in the first month. The government insists the killing spree reflects internecine feuds, as drug dealers try to silence colleagues who might squeal on them, and that police have shot only 16 people--each time in self-defense. Authorities also arrested several thousand people in the first few weeks, often, human-rights activists charge, without warrants and in some cases merely because their names appeared on an infamous blacklist of suspected dealers.

As the death toll rises, Thaksin, who was voted into office by vowing to crack down on vice, has repeatedly tried to dismiss the violence, saying, "It's bandits killing bandits." But the fact that police have arrested only a handful of suspects in any of the murders is fueling suspicions that some cops are behind many of the deaths. Prominent human-rights groups, Thaksin's political opponents and even the United Nations are raising alarm bells. Somchai Homlaor, secretary-general of Forum-Asia, a regional human-rights group, says Thailand is in danger of reverting to the dark days of military rule, as the government gives police the powers of judge, jury and executioner. "This is a practice that does not comply with the rule of law, which is a foundation of a democratic society," he says.

There is little question that Thailand has a serious drug problem. Six years ago methamphetamine pills--known locally as ya ba (the crazy drug)--were scarcely available on the streets of Bangkok. Today more than 3 million Thais use the drug and a third of ...