Sawadee Everyone,Before I can jump in to this week's update, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the mass shooting tragedy that occurred this week in Thailand. While I don't want to trivialize what happened or the grief being suffered by the families, it does provide a reminder of why we are where we are with drug policies worldwide. With families still in mourning, the Pheu Thai Party jumped onto the story and declared their intentions to launch another war on drugs as a result of the tragedy. Their zeal for going after drugs is somewhat confusing because the first autopsy found no drugs in the shooter's system even though he had had meth problems in the past. And Pheu Thai is basically the third version of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's political party. And while people either love or hate Thaksin, undeniably one of the black marks on his time in office was his war on drugs which resulted in 2,873 people being killed and earning Thailand international condemnation from the UN, many countries, and rights groups worldwide.And when Thailand's Independent Committee on the Casualties of the 2003 War on Drugs investigated in 2008 they concluded that 1,372 of the 2,873 people killed had no previous drug related offenses, going so far as to say that all 2,873 deaths should be considered crimes against humanity. So, we have the political party largely suspected of being directed by Thaksin, who was responsible for nearly 3,000 people being killed during his drug war, suggesting another drug war, in response to an incident where it's not clear drugs were even involved?And, on the other side of the world, the big news this week was that US President Joe Biden has pardoned thousands of people who were in federal prison for non-violent marijuana crimes. On top of that, he also announced plans to review the US drug classification of cannabis. It is currently a Schedule I drug on par with heroin, LSD, and ecstasy, and laughingly considered more dangerous than meth, cocaine, and fentanyl (Schedule II drugs). If the US reschedules cannabis either to a much lower tier or eliminates it from the narcotics list entirely (a long shot), the impact worldwide would be huge. Cheers,u/CannabisThailandMod
r/CannabisThailand Newsletter - Issue #14
Sawadee Everyone,Before I can jump in to this week's update, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the mass shooting tragedy that occurred this week in Thailand. While I don't want to trivialize what happened or the grief being suffered by the families, it does provide a reminder of why we are where we are with drug policies worldwide. With families still in mourning, the Pheu Thai Party jumped onto the story and declared their intentions to launch another war on drugs as a result of the tragedy. Their zeal for going after drugs is somewhat confusing because the first autopsy found no drugs in the shooter's system even though he had had meth problems in the past. And Pheu Thai is basically the third version of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's political party. And while people either love or hate Thaksin, undeniably one of the black marks on his time in office was his war on drugs which resulted in 2,873 people being killed and earning Thailand international condemnation from the UN, many countries, and rights groups worldwide.And when Thailand's Independent Committee on the Casualties of the 2003 War on Drugs investigated in 2008 they concluded that 1,372 of the 2,873 people killed had no previous drug related offenses, going so far as to say that all 2,873 deaths should be considered crimes against humanity. So, we have the political party largely suspected of being directed by Thaksin, who was responsible for nearly 3,000 people being killed during his drug war, suggesting another drug war, in response to an incident where it's not clear drugs were even involved?And, on the other side of the world, the big news this week was that US President Joe Biden has pardoned thousands of people who were in federal prison for non-violent marijuana crimes. On top of that, he also announced plans to review the US drug classification of cannabis. It is currently a Schedule I drug on par with heroin, LSD, and ecstasy, and laughingly considered more dangerous than meth, cocaine, and fentanyl (Schedule II drugs). If the US reschedules cannabis either to a much lower tier or eliminates it from the narcotics list entirely (a long shot), the impact worldwide would be huge. Cheers,u/CannabisThailandMod