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Thailand Anti-Smoking Laws Get Tougher

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today, we're going to be talking about smoking and smoking laws in the Kingdom of Thailand. This is something that's rather interesting. It's almost sort of a personal nature because this isn't really so much a legal discussion per se. It's just more of an observation that I've noticed in the 10 years I've lived here and been doing business here. When I first arrived in Thailand, I found it really sort of interesting the first time I arrived because, you know, you can pretty well smoke anywhere indoors, outdoors and only 10 years ago.

Now they have bans in place but people just kind of, I mean frankly at the time, I think they were fairly newly initiated and so people you know, they weren't really used to them yet and the enforcement mechanism had yet to come around and begin you know enforcing anti-smoking rules in the Kingdom yet. So at the time I came in, you know, 10 years ago from the time of this filming, smoking was fairly prevalent in Thailand and throughout the country. That has changed. The enforcement mechanism for enforcing fines and penalties associated with indoor smoking, that enforcement mechanism has become stricter. You see less and less smoking indoors as a matter of course.

And finally, a recent announcement from www.Thaivisa.com, this was an article I believe it's through The Nation in collaboration with ThaiVisa or the other way around the way we look at it. “Smoke on Thai beaches this high season faces jail or a hundred thousand Baht fine,” as the headline and just to quote a couple excerpts from this, “Smoking will be banned on 20 major Thai beaches from November and smokers who flout the law will face a year’s jail or a hundred thousand baht fine or both. The government in a step-by-step approach is targeting smokers as it tries to rid the country of an unwanted tag as one of the biggest environmental polluters in the world.” So I urge anybody who’s interested in this specifically to go to www.Thaivisa.com and just look up that article and you can read the whole thing.

But I thought it was of interest to those, especially those who have been coming to Thailand for quite some time that Thailand is pretty serious with respect to the rules regarding banning of smoking both indoors and now outdoors on beaches. Now where a beach begins and where it ends is somewhat up for debate but I think it's fairly safe to say if you're standing on sand and you're near the water in Thailand, that's probably considered a beach for purposes of the smoking ban. So you probably shouldn't be smoking in that location but as noted in a previous video with respect to the restrictions pertaining to so-called e-cigarettes and so-called vaping devices, you know the Thai authorities are getting pretty serious with respect to regulation of smoking and places where one can smoke. In fact, advertising restrictions have been beefed up significantly since I first came to this country and most notably, prices of cigarettes have also gone up in the recent tax hikes and excise tax increases that are noted again in another video on this channel. So just across the board, it’s getting a little bit more difficult by the day to be a smoker here in Thailand.