Tourist 'high on drugs' steals taxi and crashes it into lamppost in Pattaya, Thailand

A drunk tourist who was drunk and high on drugs allegedly stole a taxi and crashed it into a lamppost in Thailand.

Aria Afraz Komachali, 19, from Iran, was said to have carjacked a local driver's cab while on an alcohol and cannabis-fuelled rampage in 'Sin City' Pattaya in the early hours of Thursday morning September 12.

He reportedly swerved out of control while escaping and crashed into a post on the meridian strip.

Police Captain Phuttarak Sornkhamhan of the Pattaya Police Station said cops were notified at 4:06am.

He said: 'The suspect was an intoxicated foreigner. He was half-naked and wearing only shorts. He was in a daze, but he admitted to smoking cannabis. He was also drunk. But he did not explain why he stole a taxi.'

Aria was given first aid before being hauled to the police station, where he will be grilled upon sobering up.

The cab driver, Sarayut Panprasong, 37, said he had left his taxi running to buy at a convenience store.

He said: 'While I was browsing the shelves, I noticed a foreigner opening my car door to sit inside. He drove away, but he didn't make it very far before crashing. A traffic police officer at a nearby checkpoint rushed over to help control him.'

Thailand saw a surge of neon-lit cannabis dispensaries after the substance was decriminalised in June 2022 during former army general Prayut Chan-o-cha's leadership, with impoverished farmers hoping it would become a new cash crop.

However, government officials are now furiously backpedalling amid an explosion in mental health complaints and gaudy shops that have attracted an even lower class of holidaymakers than the country's infamous sex tourists - stoners.

Officials will now outlaw recreational cannabis, blaming poorly regulated use for allegedly fuelling drug abuse.

Former fishing village Pattaya became popular with American troops on 'rest and relaxation' breaks in the 1960s when the U.S. military had bases in Thailand. In the ensuing years, the coastal resort spawned into a semi-barbarous sex-tourism hellscape.

Embarrassed officials have made progress in gentrifying the region with family tourism projects but a ravenous nightlife industry and corrupt police have hampered their efforts, with undesirables from all nations still attracted to the seedy city.

Aria's case is the third road accident involving tourists in Thailand this week.

Just a day earlier, French holidaymaker Jonathan Henri Zysermann, 37, from Paris, was found dead on his overturned motorcycle after a horror crash in Surat Thani province.

While a young British tourist was killed in a similar road accident in Krabi province on September 9.

Billy Thomas James, 30, from Hammersmith, west London, was reportedly speeding without wearing a helmet when he lost control of his rented two-wheeler along a road in the popular Ao Nang area.

Cops found him sprawled on a kerb near the Khlong Ying Suea Bridge next to his shattered and overturned motorcycle.