Stricter Smoking and Alcohol Rules In Thailand

I'm generally against laws that make legal things slightly less legal (but only in certain places at certain times a day under certain circumstances if you are a certain type of person). However, Thailand is quite simply one of the drunkest places on earth, and I'm not referring specifically — or even generally — to the tourists. Thai people (and rural Thai men in particular) are raging alcoholics. The new bills being proposed to curb drinking and smoking are an unfortunate evil in this country that desparately needs to find a way to control itself.

For the average Farang or tourist, the principal effects of these new laws will be higher beer costs, and a likely loss of duty-free purchases. Other than that (assuming all the laws proposed are passed), most of the alcohol laws are targeted towards limiting domestic production, and local abstinence and treatment programs. On the smoking side, finding smoking areas may become more difficult... principally in restaurants, although tourist-targeted areas will likely be less affected.

As per usual, the nitwits (at least the anti-smoking nitwits) are out in force over at Thaivisa.com complaining that the new smoking ban doesn't cover bars and snooker halls. One thaivisa.com reader is on his way down to his local bus stop to pick a fight with anybody he finds smoking. If you live in Thailand and you are so poor that you have to use the bus, you've got more pressing problems in your life than second-hand cigarette smoke.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm all for curbing smoking. When I was a smoker, I never smoked in places where it would annoy anybody, even when it was allowed, and I don't mind (although I really don't support) creating rules for smokers who can't figure that out... but I would leave it up to individual establishments, not the federal government, to set the rules. However, certain places are simply supposed to have smoking, such as bars and pool halls. Bars are supposed to smell like smoke the same way that locker rooms are supposed to smell like dirty shoes. It's just the way things are.

Besides, I don't see why these people really care so much about stopping smoking in Thailand, where cigarette smoke ranks about 50th on the list of dangerous shit you are forced to inhale on a daily basis. One cloud of exhaust from the ass end of any truck (or two-stroke motorcycle) in Thailand (where there is no such thing as polution controls) has about the same amount of tar and carbon monoxide and ammonia in it as a good long haul on a filtered cigarette. I won't get into the noxious fumes coming out of sewers, the asbestos lined brake pads on all those motorcycles, the bacteria-filled roadside garbage heaps, or the gag-inducing vapor of certain spoiled-fish-byproduct sauces at food stalls, or the incessant dust from construction sites... and on and on.

Of course, the readers at ThaiVisa.com would never consider passing a ban on two-stroke motorcycles, or keeping beat-up, oil-burning pickup trucks off the road, because that would affect innocent, poor Thai people, who really have no choice in the matter. (Proving that it really isn't about clean lungs as much as it is about punishing smokers for their habit.)

Well anyway... either way... it is of no import to me. If these new laws mean less drinkers and less smokers in Thailand, I'm not going to argue. I'm going to withhold any further complaint until I see how much the cost of a beer goes up at TQ2.