Officers in Chumphon province tested 10 Buddhist monks and novices for drugs on August 17. Three tested positive for methamphetamine, and officials ordered them to leave the monkhood.
The raid took place at a temple in Tha Sae district at 11am. Local residents had complained that a monk there might be using drugs.
The Internal Security Operations Command in Chumphon led the operation, working with the provincial administration and Chumphon Provincial Police. Officers tested nine monks and one novice using urine samples.
Methamphetamine showed up in three of them: a 50-year-old monk, a 30-year-old monk and a 19-year-old novice. Officers then brought the three to the temple’s abbot.
He began the process for them to leave the monkhood, under Buddhist clergy rules. Officials referred the three to health promotion hospitals near their home areas for drug treatment and rehabilitation.
The report made no mention of arrests or criminal charges against the three.
Chumphon was not the first such case. A similar raid had taken place in Ratchaburi province in May 2026.
Local officials tested monks at several temples in Mueang district on May 29, after complaints of drug use. Ten of them tested positive, and officials sent them to disrobe.
Officers then found another monk with a positive result at a temple in Huai Phai subdistrict. They asked him to contact a dealer and arrange a delivery to the temple, then waited to catch the seller.
A man rode a motorcycle into the temple to deliver the drugs. Officers arrested him with five methamphetamine pills, the amount the monk had ordered.
The dealer lived in a hut on a banana plantation in Don Rae subdistrict. Officers searched the hut and found another 138 pills.
The dealer had previously worked for the Department of Corrections before resigning to sell drugs to monks at temples. He used children to deliver the drugs, according to the report.
Police sent him to Mueang Ratchaburi police station for further investigation.
The story Chumphon temple drug bust: 3 monks test positive for meth as seen on Thaiger News.
