LETTER FROM BANGKOK/Conor Pope: The king of Thailand was not as enthusiastic as he might have been about the birthday present he received from the government last month.
In his address to the nation to mark his 76th birthday on December 5th, King Bhumibol Adulyadej pointed out that the gift of a drug-free country delivered by the Prime Minister, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra, may have come at too high a price.
In his speech, King Bhumibol tactfully expressed his disquiet that almost 3,000 people had been shot dead since the war on drugs began last February and called for an investigation into the killings.
While the king is not the first to have voiced concerns about a crusade in which at least 2,849 people have been killed and tens of thousands arrested and given jail terms or spells in drug treatment camps, his intervention has had the greatest impact.
He said that the death toll was "a small price to pay" to crush the drug trade, but echoed the concerns of human rights groups when seeking an official explanation for the toll.
He also pointed out that, as it was Mr Thaksin "who makes decisions, it is natural that you alone should be pinpointed".
King Bhumibol, on the throne since 1946, is the world's longest-serving monarch and commands absolute respect in the Land of Smiles. He is protected from all criticism by the Thai constitution, a position Britain's royal family could scarcely dream of.
It is a law few would consider breaking. On the weekend of his birthday, the city was festooned with regal bunting. His picture hung in pubs, on motorway embankments, in parks and from the windows of countless cars.
Even drivers of tuk tuks, Bangkok's famous three-wheeled scooter taxis, draped his image from imaginatively chosen parts of the terrifying little motorbikes.
As the celebration reached a climax, thousands gathered outside the Grand Palace and held candles aloft and lustily sang his praises. Meanwhile, bemused tourists wandered down the Khao Sahn Road wondering why they couldn't buy a beer for love nor money. The banning of alcohol on the king's birthday no doubt caused many tourists to quietly break the don't-criticise-the-king law.
After King Bhumibol's remarks, Mr Thaskin used his weekly radio address to defend his policies and to assure the constitutional monarch that his government would investigate the deaths, something he had appeared loath to do until the king's intervention.
"His majesty is worried about how we are perceived so we must explain everything . . . It is impossible to bring drugs under control without serious action, otherwise the problem would have been resolved years ago," he said.
The police chief, Mr Sant Sarutanond, agreed with his Prime Minister. He said that of the 2,849 people killed, only 1,329 had died as a result of the war on drugs. The rest, he said, were "normal" statistics for drug-related killings in Thailand.
"I don't know how to [win the war] without having any dead. If there is no dead or injured, why is it called a war?" he asked.
In the first month of the crusade more than 1,100 people died. As the numbers climbed, the government stopped issuing updates on the death toll.
There were fears that innocent lives were lost after the government sanctioned a most severe shoot-to-kill policy in an attempt to stem the supply of methamphetamine pills and heroin which are smuggled into the country each year from the Golden Triangle which borders Burma, Laos and Thailand.
Despite criticism from groups such as Amnesty International and the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, the killings continued.
Thai people have supported Mr Thaksin's harsh measures, viewing them as necessary to tackle the drug problem which has gripped Thailand in recent years.
Health officials estimate that more than three of the country's 64 million people regularly use methamphetamines, known locally as yaba or "crazy medicine".
Cheap and simple to produce, yaba was originally popular among long-distance drivers and prostitutes. Since the 1990s, however, it has spread with terrifying speed among Thai youths.
Yaba abuse has now surpassed opium and heroin as the nation's No 1 drug problem.
Not any more, according to Mr Thaksin.
"We are now in a position to declare that drugs, which formerly were a big danger to our nation, can no longer hurt us," he told a news conference ahead of the king's birthday.
Mr Thaksin has now declared a second war on what he calls the "dark influences" in an attempt to eliminate high-level drug-traffickers and the government personnel protecting or backing them.
Drugs are not the only problem facing his administration.
Gunmen attacked an army depot in the south earlier this week, killing four soldiers and raising fears of a revival of a separatist movement in the south where Muslim groups fought a low-level war in the 1970s and 1980s.
The government - which has also been a staunch supporter of the US-led war on terror - is fearful that such unrest will do untold damage to Thailand's image as a safe place for tourists and investment.