Coup blimey!

re: "Poll date must be set" (Editorial, June 27)

Dear editor,

There was never any good reason for the coup, which would appear to have been staged  because some wanted to serve themselves a bigger slice of the Thai nation's wealth without earning it. Certainly, the public discussion needed to support any such extravagant a claim as that a coup was needed to benefit the Thai nation has never taken place, and the incredible fantasy of eradicating corruption was never less incredible than an election promise; rather, a hungry group decided for their own reasons to stage the coup which they were planning in detail whilst promising that there would be no such violation of the Thai people, in whom, according to section 3 of the Thai constitution, lies the sovereign power of the Thai nation — a moral and legal principle that the ruling politicians have ignored for more than four years.

The series of false promises from 2014 to return the Thai nation to the Thai people from whom it was taken by overthrowing the supreme legal foundation of the nation attest to the true nature of the collusion to trample the democratic wishes of the people into the dirt and silence their voice in the affairs of the their own nation. None of this is excusable. It is, rather, the epitome of corruption: corrupt rule of law, corrupt morals and corrupt acts that strictly follow the corrupt laws corruptly made up enable that legalized corruption.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on June 30, 2018, under the title "Coup blimey!" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1494982/killer-app-for-humanity
  

Decidedly 'Un-Buddhist'

re: "Debating the death penalty" (Editorial, June 20)

Dear editor,

The Post's editor is right that the death penalty raises "deeply moral" issues that should be discussed. The most obvious is that such killing directly contradicts the First Precept of Buddhism. That Thai Buddhism, loyally serving powerful political players who find killing highly acceptable, if not agreeable, for many reasons, does not categorically condemn the death penalty tells us something about the true nature of the religion known as Thai Buddhism, with its decidedly unBuddhist teachings and customs.

Prime Minister Prayuth's comments also illuminate issues worthy of note. First, there is the fake news claim apparently believed by the PM that the death penalty is necessary to deter violent crime. As the editorial notes, this is a false statement. To persistently spout such a falsehood shows either wilful lying or a wilful disregard for discovering the truth: neither of these are moral virtues.

But the PM has made an even more telling assertion in response to the condemnation of the latest legal killing by Thai authorities, insisting that not only is it necessary to maintain public order (a fake claim), but that the death penalty is necessary to teach lessons. He is in fact right that the death penalty teaches lessons. The lesson learned is seen in the murder and violent crime statistics for states that have the death penalty, for example Thailand, with 4 murders per 100,000 people compared with Australia, with only 1 murder per 100,000 and no death penalty for many years (UN Office on Drugs and Crimes International Homicide Statistics database). The lesson that has clearly been learned under the thinking espoused by the PM is that violence, up to and including vicious murder, is a solution to problems. This lesson is, of course, consistent with the repeated use of coups as a violent solution to social and political problems:  nothing peaceful or remotely in line with Buddhist teaching has ever been learned by this repetition in Thai modern history of using violence to overthrow a rule of civil law that some see as a problem to their vested interests.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on June 24, 2018, under the title "Decidedly 'Un-Buddhist'" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1491334/cops-have-licence-to-print-money
  

Narcotic myths

re: "Meth. madness" (Postbag, June 4)

Dear editor,
Martin R. is surely sincere in his belief that nothing could be "more ludicrous and irresponsible nonsense" than a letter such as Observer's (Postbag, June 2) that "supports the legalising of methamphetamine." However, sincerity of belief is a poor substitute for evidence or sound reasoning, both of which solidly support Observer's call to legalize methamphetamine use.

Tellingly, Martin R. does not dispute that current drug policy enriches mafia scum. This is sensible. The policy of handing an official monopoly on the sale of these highly popular drugs to the mafia has the usual result of a monopoly: massive profits that would not otherwise be possible. The law makers who persistently favour this kindness to drug lords could not have done more to aid them. But the kindness to mafia scum does not end with guaranteeing profits so vast that the losses reported with tedious regularity of massive seizures does not dent either the bank accounts or the supply of drugs on the streets. No. This same policy is a sure enticement to corruption of the law enforcement industry. The same was seen in the US experiment with alcohol prohibition from 1920 to 1933. That costly US experiment gave the mafia there its solid foundation as the US legal system and politics was corrupted by the profits that inevitably followed criminalizing a popular drug. It can hardly surprise that law enforcement tends to favour the status quo that puts so much easy wealth in their way merely for looking the other way whilst staging the odd seizure for public relations to keep parents and sincere Martin Rs in awe.

But it's not only that current policy richly rewards the mafia and corrupt officials, it also wastes enormous resources that could otherwise be spent on programs that actually reduce drug harms to society, including: education, health treatment, rehabilitation, and research. And then there are the enormous financial costs of keeping people in prison who have not actually harmed anyone by using their drug of choice, whilst also condemning them to a criminal record that is harmful and breaking up a family in the process. Again, current law actively worsens drug harms to users and to society.

Having declined to rebut the solid arguments for legalization, Martin R. then makes the common and doubtless also sincerely believed statement that "Comparison with the effects on one's health of cigarettes and a few beers or whiskeys just does not stack up." This popular belief among alcohol users fails the test of evidence in two ways. First, the harm to users from their chosen drugs is consistently rated by experts with alcohol at the top, in the company of heroin, crack cocaine and methemphetamine (no one is so silly as to think meth. Is harmless). For example, Nutt, et al., in "Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis" (The Lancet, 2010, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61462-6 ),  conclude that the most harmful drugs to users were, in order, crack cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and alcohol. But more sophisticated recent studies put alcohol as the most harmful of all, as seen in "Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach" (Lachenmeier & Rehm, Scientific Reports, 2015, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fsrep08126 ). We all tend to have strong personal opinions based on what we think we objectively see, but these observations are never so solidly fact based as the results of hard research. When it comes to harm to society and to others, alcohol is easily the winner, far surpassing even meth., as Thailand's road toll, domestic abuse, rape and other statistics reliably attest. Of course, most alcohol users do not commit rape or get into fights after a glass or two, but even less meth. users do those things, however much attention the media give to the rare outburst that is an extreme.

Finally, as the evidence also strongly shows, for example in the before and after statistics for Portugal, which decriminalized the personal use of all drugs almost twenty years ago, the harm to society, which is surely of paramount importance, is greatly reduced when the personal habits of adults are not criminalized except where they actually harm or directly threaten to harm others.

Personal conviction is a wonderful thing, but it's sensible to base it solidly on facts rather than guesses based on limited and biased self-reporting. Observer is right that the facts and very practical aim of harm reduction, in addition to the moral concerns, all point to the wisdom of ceasing to reward mafia scum and the corrupt at the expense of society.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on June 5, 2018, under the title "Narcotic myths" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1479069/narcotic-myths
 

References

• Lachenmeier, D. W., & Rehm, J. (2015). Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach. Nature, Scientific Reports, 5, art. 8126 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08126
   
• Nutt, D. J., King, L. A., & Phillips, L. D. (2010). Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis. The Lancet, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61462-6

Election dreams

re: "Prawit vows February election" (BP, June 1)

Dear editor,

Deputy PM general Prawit was being at best ambiguous when he pretended "a huge relief for the National Council for Peace and Order if the election roadmap goes as planned." It has been going as planned for more than four years now, which tells a lot about exactly what the road map is. An election in February remains as credible as the unverified excuses offered for the amazing watch collection.

More to the point, if the great watchman and his allies really wanted an early election as they now pretend, there is an obvious way to cut a good 90 days and more from the current schedule. Will that be done? "Within 150 days" does not mean "after at least 150 days" and it is not obvious that 90 days is needed for a signature. In fact, if the PM general and his watchers wanted something that would be such "a huge relief," the law definitely allows an election this year, certainly by November if not earlier. The reality again contradicts the pious pretences of the politicians clinging desperately to the power they stole from the Thai nation. But after four years of mounting evidence, this is no surprise.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on June 2, 2018, under the title "Election dreams" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1477321/election-dreams