Jury still out

Re: “Cannabis sensibility”, (PostBag, Nov 21).

Felix Qui may have raised a few more questions than he realised when he posed the rational question: Why it is that the recreational use of cannabis is (allegedly) no worse than alcohol? Well, all societies are different, and I found the writer’s comments led me to a unique question as well as a unique answer to his seemingly rhetorical question.

While the jury’s still out on whether marijuana or alcohol does more harm than one another, the question that Mr Qui’s comments led me to was about the obvious lack of policing on Thailand’s exploding problems with alcoholism in the post-Covid world. Every night, and well before we decriminalised cannabis, my soi has been lined with drinking parties as well as a drink-driving dealer who has the shop wide open, lights blazing all night long.

Every evening, drunk motorcycle drivers careen and weave up to my patio; once nearly striking a structural support pillar at speed with the horn blaring to wake the entire neighbourhood. Cold, frosty beers can be found in the front cubby of each of those bikes, and no attempt is made to hide the all-night alcohol dealing. The neighbourhood has grown loud with drunken carousing, and rather than “protect & serve”, the Royal Thai Police seem keener to all but “protect” drunk drivers as well as those who “serve” them all night.

This story is now common in Bangkok, so, to Felix Qui, I ask if it is that Thailand’s police and legal system is presently insufficient to shut down all-night drinking parties and wanton drunk driving in family neighbourhoods (not entertainment zones), how can we possibly be ready to allow recreational use of a narcotic which was sold to the public as supposedly to only be used for medical purposes? My answer is not to put the cart before the horse.

JASON A JELLISON