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Is Thailand Effectively Implementing Prohibition?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Alcohol Ban or, whether or not Thailand is effectively instituting prohibition here in Thailand.

A recent article from aseannow.com and ASEAN NOW is the legacy site of Thai Visa that was thaivisa.com, but it is now ASEAN NOW, the article is titled: Thai Government Proposes Fines of 500,000 Baht for posting photos of alcoholic drinks online. I have got to say just from the headline there, I would think under the current circumstances where we are at here in July of 2021, authorities one would think would have better things to do than worry about whether or not people are posting photos of alcohol online. I think that is a bit of a strange thing to be concerned about right now but okay. Quoting directly: "The Standard reported yesterday on Thailand's infamously strict laws of alcohol and its sale." Quoting further: "They said it could soon be possible to be fined 500,000 Baht just for posting a picture of a glass of beer or wine." Quoting further: "Up to now, private individuals can be fined 50,000 Baht for promoting or advertising alcohol." but again promoting or advertising, that was always the key point. Quoting further: "Now a draft amendment from the Authorities is proposing that this fine is increased to half a million baht." It also seems to be a more broad-based sort of thing as if they come after you for half a million baht just because your Facebook has a beer in the background! I mean I kind of just want to laugh at this one. It just seems like, I have heard it said before, "What would we do without these people to restrict our ability to accidentally have a glass of wine in a Facebook photo?" 

As I said, here in July 2021 it just seems like this is something we could probably put on the back burner and maybe seriously rethink but clearly there appears to be some impetus behind this and clearly there is a puritanical streak amongst policymakers with respect to alcohol. So we will certainly keep folks updated on this channel as the situation progresses.