OPINION

Handout pros

Re: "Pheu Thai's giveaway might just work", (Opinion, April 20).

Excellent article by Dr Charthai regarding Thailand's low capacity utilisation and how cash handouts would rekindle the recent lower-than-potential Thai economy. Much agreed, as long as those handouts are given to the average Thai citizen: They will spend it versus wealthy people who usually just save it.

One well-known economic principle not mentioned is the multiplier effect, where the people who spend it are multiplied several-fold from those who got it, who then respend some of it, and so forth down the road.

This is in sharp contrast to say, military spending, where there is no multiplier effect at all, as it just then sits in hardware.

Handout cons

Re: "Pheu Thai's giveaway might just work", (Opinion, April 20).

The Shinawatra 10,000-baht political special seems quite similar to the 20% buy your rice above market price ... of years gone by?

It took Thailand ten years to recover from he who lurks in Dubai's mindless machinations.

Please, not again!

A cruel proposal

Re: "Pheu Thai promotes 'animal sports'," (BP, April 20).

People should be more aware of what Pheu Thai will do regarding animal sports. Animal sports are cruel and barbaric to living beings, not decent entertainment.

Bullfighting causes bulls to suffer immensely before they are killed. Bullfighters give bulls drugs or drop sandbags on their bags so they can fight them easier.

Before the matador enters the ring, the bull is stabbed multiple times to hinder them from defending themselves. At the end of the "fight", the bull is dead or paralysed.

Cockfighting is when two roosters fight. They are more likely to fight to the death. Many attendees bet on the outcome. Many are often armed with blades and spikes attached to their feet in order to severely harm one another.

The fights end with one rooster dead or nearly dead, and common injuries include punctured lungs, pierced eyes and broken bones. The bird who loses the fight is often discarded into a barrel or trash can near the fighting ring, some even while still alive. The rooster who wins ends up with wounds, typically roughly stitched up with no further treatment.

Pheu Thai should reconsider their plan to promote animal sports/fights to attract tourists. All living beings, including humans and animals, are equal in that they can feel pain, have emotions, need socialisation and enjoy freedom.

Humans are animals too -- their species is Homo Sapiens.

All other animals, they are animals, too, but other species.

Pandas aren't gifts

Pandas are not objects to be loaned or gifted for diplomatic purposes. They are intelligent and social animals that form close bonds with their families and friends. It is heartbreaking to hear about the death of Lin Hui, a giant panda brought to Thailand in 2003 to live a life of captivity. For 20 years, she has suffered in a confined space that lacked natural dietary and social enrichment.

Sadly, Lin Hui died alone after losing her mate Chuang Chuang four years ago, just months before she was due to return to China. It's devastating to know that these gentle creatures have been denied every aspect of their natural lives, from foraging for food to roaming free.

Lin Hui is the third giant panda to die in captivity in the last six months, following the recent deaths of pandas gifted by China to the US and Taiwan. It's time for governments to stop using pandas, elephants and other animals as political gifts.

PETA urges that animals be kept in the wild or sent to natural sanctuaries where they can thrive in their natural habitat and receive the care they deserve.

Leaders don't care

Re: "Chiang Mai's smog world's worst again", (BP, April 19).

Upon returning to Chiang Mai after being away for a month, I was stunned to see that I was about the only foreigner wearing a face mask (KN 95). During the height of Covid, people would yell at me in the street for not wearing a mask even though for those in good health, Covid is the biggest wimp of any virus I've witnessed in my lifetime. (People can ridicule my vegan diet from their hospital beds).

Yet the kind of air pollution that we have in Chiang Mai poses a very dangerous threat to everyone, and it's obvious most of the public, and the government couldn't care less. The problem is not that most people are bad. The problem is that the government, the media and the medical establishment, who feed off one another, are rotten to the core.

No to cruise ships

Re: "Dept revives ship terminal plan", (BP, April 17).

Koh Samui is a major tourist success for Thailand. Why? Largely because it is a tropical island, and it feels like one. The only significant road on the island is effectively one lane in each direction and runs around the coast. There are many places with more beautiful beaches in Surat Thani, Krabi and certainly Trang and Satun, but they do not have that feeling of exclusivity that only an island gives.

So the latest idea of a cruise ship port to be built on Samui would be a disaster. Has anyone in the government done any research?

Venice, Monterrey, Maine, Dubrovnik, Amsterdam and Santorini have all banned or placed restrictions on cruise liners. Why? Environmental pollution is a big issue here. Sewage dumping, oil spills and air pollution are unwelcome. Smoky engines run 24/7 while in port to power the ship's generators.

The outpouring of tourists also swamps local communities, and independent surveys indicate such tourists spend much less than cruise companies would have us believe. The average cruise ship now has 3,000 passengers. Can you imagine disembarkation's effect on Samui's single-lane coast road? There are also serious water and garbage problems on the island without cruise liners.

Koh Samui is a tourist success for Thailand because it is an island and it feels like an island. It doesn't need bridges or cruise ships. Leave it alone.

Nod to Helen Clark

Re: "Reforms 'can't end' with legalised cannabis", (BP, April 18).

It was a welcome corrective to the traditional thinking of six decades to see the Post's "Reforms 'can't end' with legalised cannabis" on the front page for a few hours. Former New Zealand prime minister and current member of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, Helen Clark, is correct on all counts.

The 60-year-old punitive approach to the recreational use of drugs has been an abject failure that has not reduced drug use, except in places like Singapore, where moral decency is rejected in favour of extreme force.

Ms Clark is right that not only have the last six decades of drug wars indefensibly killed thousands of drug users, but they have not reduced the natural human urge of thousands of years to use drugs for fun.

The populist drug wars have, however, very effectively debased the public morals of societies practising such morally indefensible abuse of individuals. Ms Clark is right to praise Thailand's recent decriminalisation of cannabis and to insist that it needs to go further in the pursuit of good morals for society.

The drug wars and their killings, their overcrowded prisons, and their massive economic, social and moral costs to society are premised on the notion, shared by communist and right-wing authoritarian ideologies alike, that human beings are not born to be free, but to serve as productive units for self-serving groups wielding political power.

The lame excuses that drugs must be suppressed to "protect society" or to "protect children" are false claims. The facts are that whilst all drugs, cannabis, alcohol, ya ba, heroin, cigarettes or whatever, are harmful to the user, as Ms Clark sensibly admits, when it comes to harm to society, the drug that is far and away the most harmful is alcohol, as concluded in such studies as those of Professor David Nutt et al and Associate Professor Yvonne Bonomo et al.

Since alcohol is the single most harmful drug to non-users and society generally, were the advocates of prohibition sincere in their principles, they would be calling for the imprisonment and execution of the alcohol barons, those wealthy executives of famous businesses producing and peddling that very popular recreational drug to the great harm of society.

Those pushing the 60-year tradition of suppressing some popular drugs whilst allowing free rein to a more harmful drug like alcoholic beverages might think of themselves as acting for the good of society or the family, but they are confused, delusive, irrational and morally corrupt.