New Thai Cannabis Policy Opens Door To Removing Minors From the Home When Caught Using Pot
As the populist Right in rich countries toys with the idea a new prohibition-lite, a proposal in Thailand would punish young pot smokers like never before
It is hard to take the new proposed cannabis regulation against child drug abuse seriously, for at least two reasons: 1. Many politicians just spent months vilifying one another and scaring the public with terrifying stories about cannabis destroying lives and degrading society; 2. On the face of it, the new regulation looks insane.
Per presupposition (1) this could all be another nothing burger; Accepting presupposition (2) this could be a new super-dictatorial power to intrude on people's lives. There is a clear threat in the new regulation: if your kids get caught smoking pot, we can take them away from you for good.
Proposed by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, the updated regulation addresses the behaviors of children who recreationally use kratom, cannabis, hemp or products derived from these substances. These children will be classified as at-risk, thus enabling officers under the 2003 Child Protection Act to better safeguard their welfare.
There is no research on the effectiveness of forcibly removing minors from their homes and placing them in other homes. Will this reduce the number of minors who smoke pot? We do not have any evidence one way or another. There is no evidence because such a policy has never been implemented (outside of Soviet Russia, Communist China or North Korea, one can only suppose).
Key provisions of this regulation provide officers with two main courses of action: Placing the at-risk child in a welfare or development and rehabilitation center, or entrusting the child to the care of a willing guardian, with or without assigning a child protector.
On the other hand, there is a large and growing body of data that shows that wherever cannabis is legalized, use among minors declines. And not just by a little.
Study after study provides evidence that where cannabis is legal for adults, use among minors goes way down.
Of all of the crypto-fascist linguistic choices that this faux announcement takes, this one is perhaps the most chilling:
To prevent harmful behavior or potential criminal acts, certain conditions may be applied. These may include warnings not to enter places that could encourage inappropriate behavior or associate with individuals who could potentially lead them astray.
What happens when a parent violates a “warning” by entering a place that, “encourages inappropriate behavior or associates with individuals who could potentially lead them astray.”
These words have a Maoist sensibility in that all citizens are spoken to like children and threatened with punishment for careless association.
Adults and minors alike must accept that “being led astray” means exactly what the state says it means. And the following phrase captures the technocratic, abstract mood of the rhetoric of tyranny so well, it deserves to stand alone:
…certain conditions may be applied.
How many dark outcomes can you come up with by imagining the consequences of this new punishment for smoking pot?
Here's one: neighbors inform law enforcement that the kids next door are always smoking pot with their parents. Vendetta? Check. Bribery temptation? Check. Temptation for government weaponization against dissidents? Check.
This new regulation does not appear to be based on science or data or logic or even much argument. Is it purely regressive -- a path back to a resurgent Zero-Tolerance Military Complex in Southeast Asia? It sounds that way.
Who is really behind this? It cannot be the MFP, BluemenThai (Anutin’s party) or the old Junta. If true, that leaves only one: the former drug war zealots that were run out of town a few years back.
If you would like to learn more about the new populist right school of prohibition-lite, read Jacob Sullum’s excellent piece in Reason.
