Sources of drugs

The most widespread sources of drugs at the village level are groceries and VDFs. Data from all sources, mailed survey, rapid appraisal and village case studies, underline this conclusion. However, the different data sources give quite different figures on the prevalence of other sources. The presence of drug peddlers in the mailed survey data, and of private clinics in both the mailed survey and the VDPP survey is probably under-estimated. According to the data from the case studies in 15 villages, private clinics run by tambon health center workers and nurses from nearby district hospitals are commonly found: in 11 of the 15 villages such clinics are being operated. Besides, drug peddlers also come very regularly to all 15 villages (see Table 5).

There are no marked provincial or regional differences in the presence of various sources at the village level. However, one significant observation can be made in this respect: villages in Uthaithani in the lower North, Mukdahan and Chaiyapoom in the Northeast, Angthong in the Central, and Chumporn in the upper South have a wider variety of sources than other areas, including groceries, VDFs, injectionists, drug peddlers and private clinics (see Table 2-A, Annex 1). This difference in variety of sources in each village seems to be strongly related to the village size (measured by the number of households): the bigger villages are likely to have more types of drug source present (see Table 3-A, Annex 1). Sources of drugs tend to be responsive to the potential village market. The conclusion is further substantiated by a strong relationship between number of groceries and village size. More than 70% of villages of 100 households and less have one to two groceries or none at all; about the same percentage of villages of more than 150 households have no less than three groceries (see Table 4-A, Annex 1). Similarly, although the relationship is not strong, road-side villages are represented more in the categories of three or more groceries (56%) than the limited-access remote villages (38%) (see Table 5-A, Annex 1).

Table 5: Distribution of drug sources in villages according to different data collection methods