Gecko123

Fleeing the scene of an accident is the single most stupid and irresponsible piece of advice that has ever been promoted on this forum.

So let's just unpack this, Inspector Clouseau. If you're saying the woman is "pretending to own the wallet", who set the trap of placing the wallet where it could be found? The police? So somebody leaves a wallet on the ground. But you don't know who's going to pick it up, do you? Maybe the fried banana lady will find it? Maybe the owner of the Irish pub? Maybe a long time expat who knows the ropes? Maybe a 12 year old kid is going to find it? So most of those people aren't going to put up with any of this foolishness about having to cough up 6K for being a good Samaritan. So what do you do? You wai them, and tell them you have made Thai people shine in the eyes of Buddha, thank them profusely, send them on their merry way, and then what? Quickly run out and drop another wallet at the other end of KSR, and keep doing it until you snare a fresh-faced newbie who looks like he might have more money than he knows what to do with, and start in with the wild accusations and talk about the Hanoi Hilton? And another thing: the cops don't know when the hapless sap is going to show up at the station, so in order for this little policeman's retirement fund scheme to work, everyone who's on the duty desk no matter what the shift, has to be in on the scheme. And in order to make this lucrative, you have to be leaving wallets all over the place because half the time they're going to be found by broke-ass Thai vendors who couldn't cough up 6K if their lives depended on it. I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but the idea that the cops are masterminding this or in deep partnership with a gang of scam artists just doesn't make sense. And how times could this be repeated before it was universally known that this was going on?

I'm in absolute agreement. My post was being ironic.

One motive for the cop's behavior, which I actually think may be likely, is that he wanted to get out of the arduous paperwork which taking in the police report would entail. Just think of the pages of explanations from both parties which would have to be written up. What a headache. Plus all the paperwork if it's referred to the court for prosecution. So the cop, trying to avoid all the paperwork which he knows would be coming down the pike, tries to cajole the foreigner into coughing up the missing money. Problem solved, everybody's happy. So the cop's motive might not have been greed, but a desire to shirk paperwork. This happened to me a number of years back. I was attacked, threw a punch in return. Down at the police station the cop pressured me into dropping my complaint by saying that they would have to accept the counter-complaint from the party who attacked me. That same sort of "easiest way to make the problem go away" mentality might have been in play here.

I started doing this stretching exercise after reading the below article, and it has really made my lower back feel 10 years younger after just a few days. My only word of caution is that this exercise does challenge your balance, so start out slowly and have something to steady yourself when first starting out. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/08/sports-medicine-doctor-shares-the-stretch-he-does-every-day-to-prevent-lower-back-pain-ease-your-flare-ups.html

Yeah, I see i-phones and Samsung Galaxies lying on the street with long strings attached to them all the time.

I doubt the cop told him he had to cough up 6,000. What the cop most likely told them was that this woman is alleging that she had 6,000-7,000 baht in her wallet, which she says is no longer there. We don't know who's telling the truth, but I'm forced to take a police report from her unless you compensate her for the money she is saying she lost. The cops don't have any power to make the guy pay anything.

Did she also tell you to flee the scene if you ever have an automobile accident because a foreigner will always be found to be at fault?

Not so sure this was a scam in the sense that it's being done repeatedly and the police are "in on it." The scam artist is risking the loss of their wallet, their ID, and whatever cash was in the wallet should the finder decide to pocket the wallet and not turn it in. If it was a scam, you'd know where the wallet was left and you'd be watching to see what the finder did with the wallet after he found it. But in this case, the finder didn't return the wallet to the police station until the next day, so wouldn't that at least suggest that the wallet was genuinely lost? Also, if it was a scam from the outset, why would you leave 1000 baht in the wallet? You could just as easily claim an empty wallet had had 6-7,000 baht in it.

I think I would have told the police that I wasn't going to pay and that they should go ahead and file a police report. If the case was ever actually referred to the prosecutor's office, I doubt they would ever take it to court because of lack of evidence and the chain of custody of the wallet could never be established. Yeah, I know, big talk, and you could theoretically end up being put in leg irons trying to board your flight back home, but I would take the chance that the case would never make it to a judge as all three (the wallet owner, the police, and the prosecutor's office) would know there's insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Even if this numbskull idea never gets adopted, a lot of damage has already been done as the government has effectively signaled to the general public that charging foreigners more for goods and services is A-okay with them. While it might reasonably be argued that Thais should be able to enjoy national parks and cultural heritage sites at prices which make them more accessible to all Thais, trying to extend this philosophy to commercial businesses will backfire and severely damage Thailand's tourism reputation.

Scouse123 => Scouse3...2...1 ? ????

A heartening affirmation that integrity and character in political leaders does matter; a lesson that Trump's die-hard supporters appear to have sadly not yet learned. As an American who started watching British Parliamentary debates during Brexit, I was struck from the outset by Boris Johnson's disingenuous delivery, and his orangutan-like arm gesticulations. I felt an immediate instinctive distrust of the man, something which I was amazed so few failed to see. His chummy relationship with Trump further marked him as either a man who was a poor judge of character, or who lacked a moral compass. He was truly an affront to the moral fiber of the British people, just as Trump is an affront to the moral fiber of the American people.

@KhunLAOut in the countryside, much of which is impoverished, cannabis is going to be enormously popular because it will be virtually a cost-free way to get high, as it can be grown just about anywhere. It will be especially attractive to young teens who do not have the resources to experiment with other drugs which require money.

You're missing the point. It isn't a question of whether cannabis is native to Thailand. The point is that it has been legalized with almost no educational preparation about traffic safety impact, no planning about limiting access to young people, or even the health impacts of smoking anything. The way this has been rolled out by the Thai government, it's like they're encouraging everyone to get high, grow marijuana, sell marijuana, etc. I'm convinced this is all a cynical populist ploy to boost Anutin's popularity amongst the masses. He's like El Salvador's president adopting Bitcoin because he wants to be perceived as forward thinking, without giving much thought to any of the downside. You don't think there's going to be an uptick in traffic fatalities, or an erosion of academic performance, and there's no issues about cannabis being a gateway drug or encouraging drug abuse or smoking in general? Out in the countryside, people are going to be able to grow cannabis virtually cost free. Kids are going to be able to get high virtually cost free. You don't think any of this is going to encourage the selling of harder drugs in areas like Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, etc., perhaps attracting criminal elements as a result? And where, pray tell, does Buddhism fit into all of this? Who's right? We shall see, shan't we?

No, sad face and confused emojis don't count towards one's forum reputation. Frankly, I think there are only a tiny number of posters on this forum who deserve their high 'like' reputations. A lot of it is cliquism, familiarity, and a lot of 'reputations' on this forum were built by people rushing to be the first to post on a thread and pandering to the crowd with inane quips which are usually unoriginal and mind numbingly repetitive. You really do have to consider the audience. This forum used to have a lot more thoughtful and observant posters than it does today.

This has barely gotten off the ground. What's stopping potency from becoming ever stronger?

There's so many other things to worry about besides marijuana. That's called making a relative argument while ignoring the issue at hand. Just because you apparently have been smoking pot in Thailand and know people who smoke pot doesn't make you an authority on traffic safety or academic development, two subject YOU appear to know very little about. P.S. Let me know when you want to call a truce with the sad face emojis. ????

Traffic safety and the academic development of younger generations are subjects we all have an interest in. Stupid question.

@Bert got kinky Just for the record, I was talking about you and @Bday Prang and maybe a couple of other in the above post. Your claims about Thailand having a centuries long culture of pot smoking are disingenuous. The potency of the marijuana which is now being introduced is far stronger than the brickweed you mentioned in another thread. Obviously, there is going to be a lot of unfamiliarity and experimentation with stronger varieties and people are going to find out the hard way that it can impair your ability to operate a motor vehicle. So please stop acting like this is totally harmless and anyone who has concerns is a throwback to 1950's style 'reefer madness' hysteria.

I'm surprised no one's considering the possibility that the weed has been adulterated to increase its potency or even sprayed with pesticide. It sounds like a lot of the production is going to be done cottage industry style. Quality control isn't a concern? There's a few serious nut jobs on these cannabis threads. OK, we get it. You love smoking marijuana. Stop talking down to people: I doubt there's anybody on this forum who hasn't smoked marijuana. Your downplaying of traffic safety concerns and the impact marijuana is going to have on the personal development of Thais, especially the youth is irresponsible, exceedingly selfish, and if I may be frank, rather stupid and shortsighted. All you seem to care about is your ability to light up a spliff. You don't seem to give a rat's ass for the impact this is likely to have on road safety, and educational standards in Thailand. Where are all the people who endlessly castigate Thais and the Thai police every time there's another horrific accident in the news? Where are all the critics of Thailand's educational system, who endlessly bash Thai teachers, lament the lack of critical thinking, and cluck their tongues at the latest report of Thai under performance in academic proficiency exams? It feels like there's a couldn't care less, not my 'plobrem' attitude, with zero concern, much less consideration about what impact this might be having on Thais. Just a hedonistic fixation on Thailand having become a place you can now light up a joint without fear of being arrested. It looks to me like some of you are just using Thailand.

I highly doubt that that 5% higher crash rate statistic quoted in the above study is a good indicator of what is likely to happen in Thailand. Moving violation traffic control, prevalence of equipment to detect and measure intoxication on the roadside, penalties for DUII, corruption, not to mention how accident statistics are compiled here are all going to distort the true impact. States like CO, OR and CA have very aggressive DWI/DUII laws, Thailand's laws are very weak in comparison.

Good that the landlord intervened. Clear health and safety hazard. Video makes for good listening comprehension practice. Very clear speakers.

I've been coming to Thailand since 1986, and have lived here since 2003. All I can tell you is that I have smelled marijuana being smoked exactly once in all those years. Also I have taught at the high school level for quite a number of years, and not once did I ever suspect that a kid might be high on weed. If you don't think there's going to be an explosion of experimentation post-legalization amongst Thailand's youth , I don't think you know what you're talking about.