re: "Pot comparisons" (BP, PostBag, January 13, 2023)
Dear editor,
When he asks Boonlue Prasertsopha and his party: "will you and Khun Anutin and the rest of your party allow your kids to play in casinos and enjoy cannabis and whatnot?" Joynandan Haldar sounds every bit the concerned parent.
But that smelly old red herring is as deceitful today as it has always been. This dishonesty can be seen if we slightly change the question: Joynandan Haldar, will you and those who follow your reasoning allow your kids to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and feast to their hearts' content on sugary foods of zero to negative nutritional value? I sincerely hope you do not allow your children to drink alcohol, smoke, or eat whatever sugar-enriched foods they want. It's called being a responsible parent. Being such a parent does not, however, entail that you must support criminalizing alcohol for recreational use by adults, nor does it follow that you must support banning sugary drinks and chocolate Easter eggs.
Most parents, I hope most adults, realize that what might be appropriate for adults is not necessarily so for children. That parents enjoy a glass or two of wine at a family dinner is not incompatible with them denying their children at the very same table that particular adult pleasure.
It is reasonable to have legal controls against selling alcohol to children. It is equally reasonable to have similar regulations on the sale of cannabis products to children. And that is as far as the law may justly go. Neither Mr. Haldar nor anyone else has presented a single good reason why adults should not be allowed to enjoy cannabis recreationally, or to have a bit of fun at a local or international casino, which reason does not apply with at least equal force to enjoying a beer after work or a glass of champagne with a celebratory meal.
The Bhumjaithai Party was right to legalize cannabis. They should go further and respect the right of adults to decide for themselves whether to also use it recreationally or not. Their error was to not promptly have similar laws in place to regulate the drug's use similarly to the laws that regulate recreational use of the more harmful drug alcohol.
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 January 14, 2023, under the title "Alcohol way worse!" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2482347/not-ready-for-dystopia
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