After decades of draconian enforcement, Thailand’s finally ready to start a conversation about drugs. In the legislative pipeline are plans to legalize the cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes, perhaps the first acknowledgement that use and abuse isn’t limited to some shady underbelly but common among the city’s middle-class professionals. Here, hi-sos and Bangkok party kids lift the lid on the prolific use of drugs in Bangkok—at home, in clubs, and even at work.

DISCLAIMER: Drugs are illegal and carry heavy penalties. Click here to see what the law says.

The Hi-So, 31

My father is a government official-turned-businessman. I went to boarding school abroad, where I experimented with drugs for the first time. It was nothing major—I just tried.

My drugs of choice are cocaine and MDMA. I take MDMA around three times a month and only at semi-private parties, and with cocaine, around every week or every other week while I’m drinking with my friends. It prevents me from getting too drunk, so I can still drive home.

Cocaine for me is for chilling. It’s controllable. I have a few dealers with products ranging from OK-quality to pure.

The dealers these days are very creative when sending the products via messenger services. I’ve had my drugs hidden inside a magazine, a mobile phone box, a hamper with a happy birthday card or even a slice of cake.

I’ve never sold anything myself. I’ve also never been arrested or even bribed my way out of anything.

The closest I ever got to trouble was this one time when I was driving home high on cocaine in the middle of the night and got randomly alcohol tested by police on the street. Luckily I had no alcohol in my system and, by law, a woman can’t be urine tested if there’s no female officer present.

Honestly, among high-ranking people, who doesn’t use drugs? Literally everyone I’ve met, all the sons and daughters of "somebody," use drugs; partying and passing it around like it’s nothing. Even when their parents are around.

I am a very well-behaved drug user. I have things to lose. If I got arrested, there would be so many questions that I’d need to answer and it just wouldn’t be worth it. I don’t want to call my dad in the middle of the night because I got arrested with drugs.

If you met me in person you wouldn’t even know I take any drugs. Of course you see some people who get way too carried away and can’t control themselves around drugs. I feel like this goes back to our country’s education system, where you’re never taught how to make decisions, ever.

Compared to my friends, I’m just a mid-ranking girl, really. All of my friends are from much more successful families and they all turned out fine, starting their own businesses, going to work every day even though they also use drugs every day.

The Party-goer, 32 It’s time we stop being such hypocrites already. You call Thailand a Buddhist country—hello, look at Pattaya or Patpong?

I’ve been doing drugs for six to seven years: cocaine, ecstasy, MDMA and weed. I never just sit at home and do it—that’s just not me. I only do it when I’m out partying, around twice a month.