Pointless bans

re: "MFP slams holiday booze ban" (BP, June 5, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Move Forward is right that the current bans on the sale of the drug alcohol on Buddhist holy days should be ended. Buddhists who take their religion seriously already abstain from alcohol and other drugs on such holidays exactly as they do on every other day of the year for exactly the same reason: that such drug use is contrary to their deep religious beliefs. That a small percentage of Thai adults actually follow that Buddhist principle is no just reason to force their religious precept on everyone else in society. If such reasoning for a ban were actually sound, it would be equally reasonable to ban the eating of meat, which typically involves a meat eater paying others to kill for them for no better reason than to enjoy the delicious taste of purely recreational meat consumption, often to a medically harmful extent, a reality that plainly violates the First Precept of Buddhism as largely ignored by Thai Buddhism.

The pro-ban excuse from Phetchawat Wattanapongsirikul, a list-MP candidate for the Pheu Thai Party, is even weaker since he presents zero evidence that such a ban on the sale of the popular drug actually "helps prevent road accidents caused by drink-driving." As even Songkran Pakchokdee, director of the StopDrink Network Office concedes, "People can still stock up in advance for consumption at their homes, anyway," making any causal relationship between interfering with adults buying alcohol on Buddhist holy days unlikely. What does, or could were it enforced, prevent road deaths and carnage caused by alcohol use is the consistent enforcement of drink-driving laws.

Unlike a ban on the recreational use of alcohol by adults, which would violate their liberty to decide how best to pursue a happy, meaningful life for themselves (however foolish and self-harming the rest of us might think their choices), banning driving under the influence of drugs does not violate any right, but protects others in society from a very real threat to their own life and well-being. That is why such behaviour, but not the drug itself, may be justly banned by law, as is similarly the case for every drug in popular recreational use by adults. 

 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 6, 2023, under the title "Pointless bans" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2585756/hazardous-waste