This investigation focused on social trends of highland communities in the next decade based on fundamental data from field surveys and case studies at the village level. The data were composed of documentary research findings at the policy level, blueprint plans, strategic contingency plans, highland development project assessment results, and study results on water networks, as well as community forest networks and networks of highland farmers groups. The Ethnographic Future Research methods were applied to analyze and collect the data which were derived from focus group discussions of specialists and experts on hilltribe and minority group development on education, public health, economy, ethnology and sociology, military and internal security as well as academics, ethnicity researchers, and hilltribe leaders in the northern region. The discussions were conducted at two levels: policy and operation by comparing past and current data of the hilltribes and minority groups regarding economy, politics and government, environment and society. Issues included education, public health, social welfare, and community development. The data were then predicted for future trends based on academic principles and experience (p.116). The results of the analysis were summarized as follows. The government regarded that hilltribes and highland minority groups encountered a plethora of problems, particularly with cultivation of narcotic crops, as there was an increasing number of drug addicts. Moreover, new narcotic drugs were prevalent, such as, heroin, morphine, methamphetamine, addictive glue, and thinner. Most of new addicts were working people and teenagers (pp. 117-118). The state also desired highlanders to live in the country legally in accordance with environmental and natural resource conservation systems. This was because the state was determined to fight against destruction of highland natural resources. The state still believed that hilltribes and minority groups were directly involved in the destruction of natural resources, despite a large number of evidence indicating otherwise. Furthermore, the state intended to solve illegal settlement problems of hilltribes in order to solve national security, economic and social problems. Hilltribes and minority groups were still encountering poverty, public health, land ownership, migration and labor problems (pp. 117-126). The study recommended that, in the future, the state still directed the work system to solve those problems in the same way and at a slow pace. State attempts might not correspond to needs and major problems of hilltribes and minority groups and ethnicity in each area (p.126). This was because almost all agencies working for hilltribes played a role of “a giver” and “director” to achieve the objectives of the projects, where the hilltribes were hardly involved in planning and decision making (p.118).