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Awfully Lawful by Scott Jones

To further the decay of Thailand’s international reputation after the tsunami, the announcement of plans to serve endangered species for dinner at the Night Safari, a military coup and new tourist visa laws understood only by the person who wrote them, recent headlines heralded: “Thailand to raise drinking age to 25.” This should reduce the projected amount of tourists in 2007 to eleven or twelve and completely eliminate young travelers from Italy, where children move directly from the milk bottle to the Chianti bottle, and from Germany, where they actually serve beer in the womb. Considering Thailand currently has an appointed prime minister and cabinet supposedly writing a new constitution, it’s good to know they’re concentrating on important rulings guaranteed to reduce tourism income, create a fresh network of illegal activities, turn millions of happy revelers into criminals and drive bar owners insane or into jail. The police will have plenty of new opportunities to enhance their personal revenue while harassing people and have a splendid excuse not to deal with insignificant issues like yaba, opium and heroin smuggling, bombings in the south and checking Thaksin’s recently returned family’s baggage to make sure he’s not hidden in the oddly shaped, oversize suitcase with attached life-support system.

Okay, I’m not a fact-gathering news reporter, just a busy little worker ant with time to read only headlines, but I heard rumors that this wasn’t meant to apply to foreigners, which is a lovely way to tell Thai citizens that they’re more immature and alcoholic than the rest of the world. The logic of this law escapes me, since most humans can reasonably be regarded as adults at age 21. Let’s see, you have a 23-year-old father of three, who gets up before dawn to work past dusk to support his family and can’t legally have a shot of Sangsom rum to relax and escape instead of duct-taping his hyperactive two-year-old to a passing tourist bus. The logic here rivals the short-lived edict a couple of years ago banning petrol sales after 10 p.m., perhaps intended to prevent terrorists from devious petrol activities at night, but instead inconvenienced millions of innocent motorists, crippled transport vehicles delivering products throughout the country, and ruined the life of said 23-year-old father, who, stranded on the highway while driving home from work, was beaten and robbed by bandits. After his release from the hospital, he attempted to drive across country to Issan to visit relatives during his one day off. Since he couldn’t get there overnight without stopping for petrol, he filled his trunk with extra cans of fuel, which overheated during the scorching heat and exploded, scattering the remains of the entire family into a rice paddy.

The law probably wouldn’t have much effect anyway since there seems to be an array of methods to get around any Thai law, like speeding through red lights if you don’t particularly want to stop, or, in this case, by taking a few steps to a more flexible bar down the block. These days, they don’t sell alcohol at convenience stores and larger shopping markets before 5 p.m. or after midnight, but you can buy one beer or twenty-cases next door, anytime, at the “We Don’t Care About Laws Store.”

In America, liquor laws are governed by each state, or even by each county within a state, which makes traveling very confusing. You’re in one county, but to get a drink you have to drive over the mountains to the next county with all the hammered, careening locals who need one more beer before driving off a cliff. In North Carolina, you can’t buy a beer while standing on the wrong side of the county line, but you can walk across it to the next petrol station where they have cold ones on ice in a barrel next to the check-out counter. In a conservative state concerning drunk drivers, I wonder about the highway patrolmen watching people getting in their cars with a cold beer in their hand. “No, sirree, certainly not drinkin’ and drivin’! I just cracked the can to let it breathe while I’m takin’ it home to share with the family.” In New Orleans, the Official Party Animal City, drinking and driving is an inalienable right. Drive-Through Daiquiri shops, open 24/7, are like McDonald’s with huge menus posted outside, where you can order drinks before getting them at the window, from the standard 8-ounce drink to the 64-ounce “Trouble-maker” size. The law says the liquor container has to be “closed” in a car, so you drive up to the window; they put a plastic cover on the Styrofoam cup holding your vat of booze, seal it with two strips of masking tape, stick a straw through the hole and then hand it to you. I’ve always thought a great way to control drunk drivers is to give the streets over to them for two hours after bar closing time and just let them eliminate each other.

In true Thai style, few days after the “no drinking till 25” headline, the news said the law was rejected for further study and its drafters were sent to the Home for the Terminally Silly to work on a new visa allowing tourists to spend one year in Thailand at the rate of one day per year, valid for 365 years. They’re also replacing the tourism campaign “Unseen Thailand” with “Don’t See Thailand” and incorporating new, compelling slogans: “Experience the world’s largest waves! Eat elephants! See tanks in the streets! No drinking allowed!”

Laws in Thailand were made very clearly unclear to me when I asked a bike shop owner about getting license plates for a used motorcycle sitting in his showroom. “We get plates. Cost 40,000 baht.” I asked, “Is that legal?” He paused, and then said, “Half.”

SCOTT JONES
email scottjasonjones@yahoo.com
snail 48 Moo 1 Baan Poodoi Tumbol Nongjom, Amphur Sansai Chiangmai 50210 Thailand
cell [66] 7.188.8487
web www.giveandlive.org