Dogmatix

No reason to suppose a judge would refuse a request from the police chief to issue an warrant for refusing to comply with a police summons. Big Joke was obviously busy brown nosing Thaksin and cabinet ministers in Chiang Mai over the weekend. If he can clear this, he is still in the running for police chief in September and is young enough to stay in the job for 6 years. Lucrative deals could be made out of that with Thaksin and others.

Probably coming soon anyway. The last time cash in account/ monthly income for retirement visas was increased was about 20 years ago, if I recall correctly, and the lump sums were increase by several times. The fee for PR was increased from 50k to c180k at the same time. But the old timers who had been on retirement or marriage visas continuously for a few years before it went up were grandfathered in and still only have to make the old rates, if they are still alive.

Weed didn't cause these epidemics but a small minority do progress from cannabis to harder drugs. From my recollections of decades ago, quite a few went on to try LSD in the 70s which was considered on a par with cannabis but most only tried that a handful of times and gave it up. Those with money went on to try cocaine and some may have continued with that for a few years just in the student days no one I knew could afford cocaine. I knew a couple of people who went on to try heroin but they only snorted it and didn't dare shoot it up. It was just a novelty, dare thing for them and they didn't do it for long. But the vast majority of people I knew who used cannabis in my young days never went on to other drugs and most didn't continue much past university, as it was only a social drug amongst students. Nearly all of them became drinkers as they got older instead which led to alcohol problems in some cases but that probably would have happened without cannabis. I would say that the data about cannabis as a gateway drug is largely inapplicable to places where it is legal. The main reason that young cannabis users get into drugs like cocaine and heroin is because cannabis is illegal and they have to buy from dealers who introduce them to harder drugs. People are not going to be turned on to other drugs by legal weed dispensaries. Without the illegal dealers the gateway doctrine cited by Cholnan is nonsense because there is no gateway. that is not say that no one moves on to harder drugs but there is no overlap of distribution and people are just as likely to go on to harder drugs from speed or alcohol as from weed.

I agree the smoking at that concert should not have happened but the move to ban recreational use was planned long before that. It was just used as a justification. Without that they would have found something else.

The government never managed to stop people selling it completely when it was completely illegal. So after more than 2 years of legalization with widespread investment in growing and distribution. ...

Hard to say without video of the start of the incident and the firing of the shot. The cop said he pulled his phone on them and started filming which peed them off and they grabbed his phone. Who knows if he pulled his gun on them immediately or they assaulted him first. If they were angry and abusive, he may have pulled his gun, feeling threatened by two big farang blokes he knew could overpower him quite easily, as they did. I couldn't make out what type of gun it was but it looks like a hammer fired pistol, not a striker fired pistol like a Glock which doesn't have a safety. A hammer fired pistol has a safety but a cop would definitely keep a round in chamber. Most likely it was something like a Sig Sauer or similar double action/single action model. You would carry this on half cock with a round in the chamber and safety on. It requires a long pull on the first shot to make it a bit safer but the subsequent shots go off with a shot pull. If he had a safety, the cop may have flicked it off as he drew it. It may also have been a striker fired Sig Sauer like the huge order the police bought a few years ago which has no safety but requires a long trigger pull on each shot. Anyway it is quite easy to see how a shot was fired given that cops carry a round in the chamber, as they do in the US and most other countries. The only country I know of where you are not allowed to carry a pistol with a round in the chamber is Israel. Even their sky marshalls have to rack the slide before opening fire with their .22 pistols (to reduce risk of damage to the plane).

Unlikely for first offences. 5 years a piece more likely plus fines.

Big Joke threatened to blacklist them. LOL. Getting out of the LOS is more of an issued than coming back at the moment. Surprising no firearms offences so far but that might come later. There are charged with theft, presumably the gun. Would think they could be charged with illegal possession of a firearm in a public place and discharging a firearm in a public place. They might also be charged with threatening a cop with a firearm, although it looks as if they took his gun to avoid being shot, not to shot him. It goes to show the benefit of a back up gun in an ankle holster like many American cops carry, also he wouldn't have been able to get to one while in a head lock. Hard to say what motivated them. The cop said they offered a bribe. Was it the opposite that he demanded bribe? Anyway they were charged with driving without licences and therefore were a menace to others on the roads, particularly if speeding. Why not just pay a fine or a bribe and enjoy the rest of their holiday? They will probably have a few years in a nasty Thai prison to contemplate that.

I always got the impression that the low priced bottles were massively under declared too. Some low priced bottled must have been declared for a dollar or two each, given that the import duties, excise tax, municipal tax and VAT have to be applied to the landed cost and VAT is applied to the landed cost plus all the other taxes. I remember looking at an Australian wine import business someone put up for sale. Part and parcel of the deal was an Australia wine export company which was essential for buying wines in Australia and exporting them somehow at a massive loss in order to keep Thai taxes down. The wine producers are not willing to do this. So importers have to have their own price fixing operations in the exporting countries. This looks like a huge opportunity for the Customs and Excise Departments to call in millions in bribes as the importers will have to double up on the bribes they have already paid registering all their labels. Since the =FDA is involved in the registrations, they will also clean up.

The tax residency rules are pretty black and white in Thailand 180 days out in a tax year and you're out of the net whether Thai or not. I recall Thaksin's daughter, who is now in line to be PM, when she was studying in the UK was used as a vehicle to remit a huge family profit on something but it was challenged purely on the grounds that they had slipped up and she was out of the country a couple of days less than 180.

He would have been arrested for smuggling out out of Thailand but in Singapore he would have been hanged.

I knew one guy at university who did the same. He was bright and a nice guy but started taking acid on a regular was for a while wandering around wearing old ladies' outfits that he bought in the Salvation Army shop. Eventually he was institutionalised and the hospital said he could no longer function at all in the outside world and would probably have to remain institutionalized for the rest of his life. That was in our second year. He never reappeard and I never heard anything more about him. Sad. Anyone who's ever tried it will understand how it has the potential to take people to a place that they can never come back from. It is very different from cannabis.

Seems to be just Swiss thus far.

The uncles were OK with decriminalization. The problem is Thaksin.

Currently licensed herbal practitioners are allowed to write prescriptions for extracts over 0.2% THC. It seems logical that they will also be allowed to write prescriptions for the raw plant which is not illegal,

The way the bill is currently drafted, there is no basis to get warrants to search homes for cannabis, except perhaps for people suspected of selling or growing without a licence. For ordinary users the only offences are recreational use and driving under the influence. Possession is not illegal under the bill or the Narcotics Act, except for extracts over 0.2% THC. So, unless they change things it will not be illegal to possess it, unless you are caught using it recreationally. Of course they could argue that possessing buds without a medical prescription will be circumstantial evidence of intent to use recreationally. Their whole approach is ridicuous.

All this because Thaksin has a grudge against the coke dealers who allegedly supplied his son.

I think part of the problem is that Thailand doesn't adjust visa fees for inflation for many years and then does it in big jumps. Fees charged by immigration got their last major uplift in 1999. So there could a big increase planned there too. These new fees for tourist visas do seem a steep though with all their talk of encouraging more long stay tourists. Western countries increase visa fees every year. The US B1/B2 has gone up about 30% in two years but to be fair is still very good value. 6,660 baht for a multi-entry 10 year visa to a huge, developed country with climates ranging from the tropics to the Arctic and limitless tourist attractions is a lot less than Thailand is charging in NZ for a 6 month visa. You are also allowed to do business on the US visa which is not the case with these Thai tourist visas. I think they need to look value for money and competitiveness.

Wow. That is around 4% of GDP. How about the defaults on consumer debt which is more that mortgage debt?

Thai interest rates the highest in 10 years but how come I am still getting only 0.5% on my saving account - the same at 10 years ago?

This is a great idea in tandem with the plan to attract more alcoholic tourists to Thailand. Why not also put these pictures on weed instead of recriminalizing it. Warnings are indeed required on weed packaging in Canada and US states. If underage kids and foreign tourists see the warnings, they will know the risks and not do too much of it. So everything will be OK.

The state of California has determined this product may cause cancer and could cause damage to unborn fetuses. California requires a warning like this on just about everything, not limited to found, drink and smokables but plastics and stuff too. Thailand should these pictures on everything including all the cheap plastic products imported from China.

Thanks for the link but it doesn't support the statement that she was attacked by the government over monetary policy as governor. On the contrary she was attacked by the private sector as governor for bowing under pressure from the government to introduce capital controls. For the rest of her time as governor she kept a low profile.

The suspect looks a bit overweight. Prison rations should soon fix that for him.

There is no justification for reducing rates at this point but this is Thaksin's style. He did same think in the first Thaksin govt and fired the governor of the BOT. Repeating this type of nonsense and repeating the land bridge project along with the vote buying digital wallet shows how bereft he is of new ideas now but is nevertheless determined to get firmly behind the policy steering wheel again. How sad for Thailand to have someone like that in charge again when they voted for a different party anyway.