03 August 2001 :

The number of convicts on death row has risen dramatically to 326, the most there has ever been since the Corrections Department was set up. The figure is expected to rise to 500 by the end of this year, prison officials said.
Prisoners with long jail sentences are being moved out of Bang Khwang maximum security prison to make more room for the growing number of the condemned.
Siwa Saengmanee, the Department head, said the recent surge in death sentences had added markedly to the numbers. "Those on death row will be executed on the same day their petitions [to His Majesty the King] are rejected," Mr Siwa said. He said 18 condemned drug offenders were going through the process of petitioning for royal clemency. Over the next three to four months, he would decide whether speedier trials and prompter rulings could discourage drug trafficking.
Siva said he had instructed prison officials to treat the inmates waiting to be executed humanely. He said executions should continue as long as capital punishment was legally allowed. Responding to arguments by criminologists that the death penalty would not help solve the country's drug problem, Siva said, "I am not sure whether the death penalty can reduce the number of methamphetamine pills," adding that it should take some time before the "get tough" policy against major drug traders would yield any fruit.