A Thailand official on Tuesday stated that a Buddhist monastery in central Thailand is now without monks after all of its holy men failed drug tests and were defrocked.

According to district administrator Boonlert Thintapthai of Phetchabun province, four monks, including an abbot, at a temple in the Bung Sam Phan district tested positive for methamphetamine on Monday.

According to the authority, the monks have been transferred to a medical facility for drug rehabilitation.

The monks have left the temple, and the local villagers are worried that they cannot perform any merit-making, he said. Worshipers might earn merit by giving food to monks as a good deed.

More monks will be dispatched to the temple, according to Boonlert, so that the locals can fulfil their religious duties. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime claims that Thailand is a significant transit country for the methamphetamine that enters the country via Laos from Myanmar’s unstable Shan state.

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Pills can be purchased for less than 20 baht (about $0.50) on the street. In recent years, authorities in Southeast Asia have seized unprecedented amounts of meth.

Earlier in January 2022, a Buddhist monk was detained on suspicion of consuming and dispensing methamphetamine pills in a village in the Chaiyaphum region of northeastern Thailand.

According to authorities, the 40-year-old monk Phra Suthorn, who resided at a nearby monastery, had been peddling meth pills, also known as ya ba, or crazy medicine, to youths in the area.

After receiving numerous complaints from locals about the monk’s actions earlier this week, law enforcement officials decided to look into the matter.

Phra Suthorn refuted the allegations, but a later search of his residence turned up a plastic packet containing 36 methamphetamine pills hidden under his bed.

According to authorities, the monk then admitted to consuming and selling drugs, informing investigators that he had been doing both.

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