The Last Chance, Wat Tam-Krabok rehabilitation center Thailand

Drug rehabilitation center, Wat Tam-Krabok monastery, Thailand

In the Buddhist monastery Wat Tam-Krabok, in Thailand 150 km northeast of Bangkok, a drug treatment and rehabilitation program is taking place under the name “The Last Chance”.

Two brothers, Chamroon (deceased) and Charlan Parnchant, founded the monastery in 1957. In 1959, only two years later, on an attempt to fight drugs, the treatment and rehabilitation program begun in the monastery with the primal objective to treat the Hmong, a hill-tribe well known opium cultivators and suppliers. During the first five years the program was a big success when thousands of Hmong cultivators left behind the hills to join the program causing a downfall on the opium supplies. Since then more than 90,000 drug users were treated and rehabilitated with success, according to statistics, reaching the 70% making this program probably the most successful in the world.

Each client (a drug addict entering the program is called a client) has the right to enter the program only once hence taking the name “The Last Chance