jts-khorat

In my old times on Phuket, payment of a 'service fee' because police was inconvenienced to drive out for nonsense would have been the preferred method of cooling down hapless minds.

What a subtle way to talk about overstayers ????

Interesting @FritsSikkink, that you feel like I talked to you; some real loud protesting going on... But my original answer was very clearly to the post of @freedomnow above.

Marihuana used for medical reasons shoukld never be mixed with tobacco. The negative health balance of smoking is well known, so why compound risks. Actually I would be hesitant to smoke it pure, or vape it, as well. In both cases, the risks are simply an unknown to date and putting any pressure on the lungs in old age seems like a bad idea. The way to go, to my mind, for a clinical application, would be edibles: used this way for a very long time, dosage can be exact, easy to transport and consume in public if necessary. The only negative I can think of is, that you need to keep them secure from children, who might mistake them for something they are not.

Bragging about the 'difference' on an anonymous message board, mentioning really specific details, raises red flags right away (usually it is, how much money the girl supposedly earns, here it is that she has a degree -- details not even remotely relevant to the discussion). That is not to say that there are not good girls to be found; as in: "some of my best friends are good girls". Displaying visible "owners' pride" about them just looks wrong to me.

And even if such clauses where not normal... has he talked to his own landlord if a yearly contract might not be adjusted accordingly for his special case? I would think that making your landlord bend a bit will certainly be easier (cheaper?) then bending an unwilling immigration officer.

What a weird case of totally confused reporting. The abbot was suspended and will with extreme likelihood be defrocked; why would he persist in his threats, as he is now liable to the full force of criminal law? Why are there people living in houses on temple grounds? This alone is irregular, even more so when a female person walks around temple grounds at night (to deliver lottery tickets, no less). Frankly, this report leaves many more questions open than it answers. Once more I would wish that just a single newspaper article in this country would make sense.

Re-reading the OP, the landlord is following this law to the letter: 7-day notice on the door, he is not entering the premises or evicting the OP but locking his stuff 'in'.

I guess charging him with overstay initially means, that they can detain him (fairly indefinitely), control who visits him, and make their investigation in the murder without having to worry that he will be gone without a trace. Normally I would also assume, that they would want to find out, how substantial his bank balance in conjuntion with his friendliness is, but as they have already giving a press conference, he seemingly was indeed not "cooperative".

Another cliche on the heap: "but mine is different"! Good luck to you sir, to manage to find the sole unicorn in the magic forest.

It cannot get more cliche-filled and obvious with the trolling. But from time to time, it still can be fun to feed them.

@PPMMUU was it?

... double post

I think what most can agree on is, that in adults (!), it can (!) have amazing health benefits -- if used responsibly. As with all things, the dose makes the poison. Somebody spliffing grams a day, every day, of the highest THC potency stuff they can find, maybe even mix it with other drugs, should not be surprised that the effects can be over time less favorable. The question should not be, if Marihuana -- or alcohol, as it is arguably the more destructive drug -- can be legalized, but if the populace as a whole is able to behave responsibly, or if laws are needed to curtail all to protect those that are unable to behave accountably. From my mindset, I am all for trusting in our enlightened fellow citizens, spending the tax income on education about potential dangers, so everybody can make an informed decision about risks and benefits.

Thanks for the update. Best of luck and a fast recovery!

I certainly hope for you and your wife, that the situation rights itself and a simple and avoidable root cause is found soon. As I see that this is weirdly located in the Pub section (hence the inappropriate jokes), maybe send a PM to @Sheryl and ask for her advice, or have the thread at least moved into medical.

This is not my underlying assertion. My underlying assertion is, as people do exactly not drink to excess, not being able to do that on a very few days in the year -- even if it is during a holiday -- would (or should?) not bother them in the slightest. It is you who says that people are bothered by the inability to daily imbibe, or what you call "stupid rules". Maybe they are bothered a tiny bit, but to the point that it ruins their holiday? Frankly, there are many things that bother me about Thailand, and from the look of it, my list would be quite different from yours. What to do about those things? Simply ignore the law because we personally think it is stupid? Maybe one should have at least good arguments, able to convince the locals, why things do not make sense as they are in Thailand, so they might be changed: jet ski and taxi mafia, unsafe driving, arcane immigration rules, double pricing, all senseless and disagreeable much more so than Buddhist holidays. Alas, I am quite open to a discussion if the restricted bying times in the afternoon make any sense (they don't: even though the reasoning had merit, as many things in Thailand, real-world application was and is impossible), or if the state should be enforcing religious beliefs in general (State Sangha) or how far the state should be legislating at all (instead of favoring only certain drugs where the state earns big, then I would rather favor de-criminalization of all drugs and let people behave responsibly on their own acknowledgement of risks). That a small minority of uninfomred and ignorant tourists could be somehow bothered by existing laws in a foreign country is, however, not an argument that I would accept as valid, and as nothing has changed ever, it seems not an argument which the locals -- who depend so much on tourists, if we believe some posters here -- accept either (Move Forward might, but I believe it after it happened! So far it looks like a short straw fire leading to the next coup, nothing more).

I am not sure that your circle of friends, being drunk daily, is as good an argument for daily alcohol use by everybody else, as you seem to think.

For the same reason, why tourists in New York better also put a paper bag around their spirits if they want to consume them, even though some might see it as senseless. But when in Rome... Or are you that exceptionalist, that you believe that the laws of a country should not be valid for westerners who want to amuse themselves? That is a pretty parochial and colonialist attitude.

That was exactly the argument brought forward by some here, that holidays worth thousands of pounds were ruined because people could not have a "glass of red wine with their meal" during a very limited number of special days. If people are not dependent on consumption, not having a glass of wine and drinking a glass of coconut juice instead would not impact their holiday at all. That those rules might not make sense to many, was a cental part of my previous post, so we are not in total disagreement there. But if tourists do not inform themselves before flying half around the planet, my sympathy for them is really limited.

I see. You defend that tourists come here to treat Thailand as a kind of Disney park, an arena purely for their own fun. And because that is so, the Thais have to recind their own religious traditions and judicial system just to comfort ignorant mass tourists. Maybe I am naive when I expect people in the 21st century to have self-reflection and behave responsibly towards themselves and others. But frankly, if people do not fulfill this simple standard, should I myself really care about their feelings? To clarify: I am not against people having fun. But I argue that this need for enjoyment does not trump the right of locals to decide on how they want to live their life. So I call yours a very weak argument. Your misunderstanding of my point about smoking weed is glaring. I did not say that people come here because they want to smoke, but it was an example that there are widely differing attitudes to a wide range of drugs in this world -- alcohol being simply one of many (and to some, one of the more dangerous and destructive ones). So my point still stands: if you are dependent on daily drug use, inform yourself, if it is legal and available during your stay. If you do not and this really ruins your holiday, the joke is on you.

Weird. That is exactly what I would suppose tourists to be doing, if they want to come to a far away foreign country to immerse themselves in the culture. Why else travel in the first place, if you want to have everything exactly like at home? That being said, not everything needs to make sense. Like when landing in Dubai, I would be very careful to not have eaten bread sprinkled with poppy seeds (a very common thing to eat in Germany at breakfast, but a single seed, even free of opium alkaloids, will still get you a multi-year jail term there). When landing in New York, I would not want to sit at a street corner with a beer bottle open in my hand ("land of the free!"), even though this is the most normal thing to do in Germany. When in Indonesia I would rather not smoke a joint openly in the street, while in Germany you might just get away with it (it is not technically legal, but ignored if you are not too blatant). Etc, I think you get my drift: all my examples are about drug use, legal in one place but not in another. Thailand has its own quirks here, so if you are dependent on the regular consumption of a particular drug, being informed in the age of the internet is the easiest thing to do. There really is no excuse.

As said before, I do think it not actually important that everything is 'proven'. Maybe not everything can, with our limited human abilities. What matters, for us as a functioning zivilisation, is that people behave as if there is a moral law and ethics to follow. Everything else would lead to barbarism. Personally, I believe in Kamma and Samsara, without having any proof that this is a 'true' reflection of reality. It just sounded the most plausible to me, so I act accordingly.

As this is in the village: any heavy spraying of pesicides or other chemicals in the fields around your house -- or around the water tower or drinking water source? Did they "clean" the inside of the "new" water tower? Did any others in the village have similar symptoms? Knowing Thailand, that might be a talk well worthwile having with the mayor.

You made a country your home where the majority of the populace shares in this 'delusion'. In the end it is up to anybody what he believes in personally. I myself prefer people who believe in trying to do morally good while alive and around me -- and it makes no difference to me if they act like this due to a belief in a heaven, virigins (of any number, or maybe just 'grapes' as the real translation goes), personal rebirth or the cycle of life being actually a thing to be free from.