Re: "Rivals lay claim to welfare," (BP, Jan 19).
PM's Office Minister Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said that when the state welfare scheme was launched in 2016, we had 7.7 million low-income earners. Today, a total of 19.63 million people have applied for the scheme.
In short, under the Three Ps' watch, the number of low-income earners has soared by 155% over the past six years. In fact, World Bank data shows that we beat only war-torn Myanmar in annual GDP growth in Asean (2021 data; excludes high-income Brunei and Singapore).
Although the Three Ps are to be praised for their truth in advertising why we should re-elect them, "I've made you poor, vote for me!" doesn't attract me.
Burin Kantabutra
Let people learn
Re: "Six nabbed in Pattaya over bud sale permit," (BP, Jan 9).
Even before humans existed, animals ingested drugs. Some birds intentionally eat rotten berries to get high from the alcohol, goats eat cannabis flowers, cattle and deer eat psychedelic mushrooms and so on.
Then humans, for tens of thousands of years, variously ingested alcoholic drinks, ganja pollen, ayahuasca, jimson weed, magic mushrooms, peyote buttons, and a slew of other mind-altering substances.
Even Gautama Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad probably did drugs when they were teenagers -- it would certainly have propelled their aims of getting spiritually high. So why are so many of today's adults freaking out about recreational drug use (other than alcohol)? Granted, some of today's newer drugs, like fentanyl, are deadly but overdosing on alcohol has been known to be deadly for millennia.
Here are some reasons why authoritarian adults take a hard line against all recreational drugs other than alcohol: 1) They don't know first hand how each drug affects a person. They only know by hearing reports how overdoses affect people and it's always worst case scenarios.
2) They want alcohol to be the only legal drug because they're familiar with alcohol and they may be involved in making money from it. Businessmen don't like competition.
3) Police, judges and prosecutors haul in tonnes of money and possessions from those who are arrested for illegal drugs -- even before that person is found guilty or innocent.
4) Those who don't use recreational drugs other than alcohol are probably jealous of how happy and content other drug users are. Jealously leads to anger and attempts to criminalise "others" who seem to having too much fun.
If you've read this far, you'd be justified in thinking I'm a drug user. I'm not. I don't take anything -- no ganja, no alcohol, no caffeine, no pharma, not even sugar (which National Geographic calls "addictive"). I did do all sorts of drugs when young, but I quickly grew out of that. How many Thai judges, politicians or police chiefs can say they're drug-free? Yet those drug users happily imprison tens of thousands of Thais (for decades each) for getting caught with a small number (as little as one-half) of speed pills.
Ken Albertsen
Cut both ways
Re:"Beauty in madness," (PostBag, Jan 19).
Songdej Praditsmanont refers to Aung San Suu Kyi as a "patriot". How patriotic was it when that "democracy icon" hypocrite made excuses for the unspeakable atrocities that her government committed against the Rohingya people? I'm not saying she should be in jail. But if we're going to pretend that she isn't a hypocrite then why are we condemning the very military leaders in Myanmar that she supported?
Eric Bahrt
A lesson in migration policy
Re: "Foreigners 'must follow visa rules'," (BP, Jan 17).
I've just completed my 90-day reporting requirement. At the risk of getting beaten up by my fellow expats in a dark alley, I'm going to come out and say it: the 90 day reporting requirement is an important, necessary and worthwhile procedure.
Yes it's inconvenient, yes it's a bit of a burden. But the Thais have every right to know who is in their country, where we're located and what we're doing.
When I was a young lad in the USA, there used to be booming TV announcement: "All aliens must report to their local immigration office" by a certain date.
The ad then showed a cartoon character scurrying to an immigration centre.
The USA, EU, Canada, Australia have long since given up on proper and strict immigration enforcement. Now our societies are awash with millions of illegal aliens, phoney "asylum seekers" and foreign criminal gangs. They are destroying the Western world.
I can only wish that the Western world would go back to what the Thais are doing now, and have immigration reporting requirements.
Ben Levin
