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Why Thailand is Moving Closer to Decriminalizing Methamphetamine’s
..The war on drugs is futile. So why not just decriminalize meth?
It’s not a sentiment you’d expect from senior officials in any authoritarian country — let alone from a strait-laced army general, draped in medals, who came to power in a coup.
But Thailand’s top law enforcement officer is now pursuing this radical notion with vigor.
He’s talking openly about a potential new diktat, issued by military rulers, that would allow citizens to smoke meth without fearing prison.
“The world has lost the war on drugs,” said Thailand’s Justice Minister Paiboon Khumchaya, according to Reuters. “Not only Thailand.”
These are startling statements in a country that, as it stands, still executes drug traffickers.
The Thai government’s drug policy is quite harsh. After all, in recent decades, the nation’s police have largely mimicked the zealous drug war mindset propagated by the United States.
Yet now, seemingly out of nowhere, this typically rigid junta is spouting soft views on narcotics — namely meth — that fall somewhere to the left of many Colorado stoners.
“This is unprecedented,” says Pascal Tanguay, a Bangkok-based associate with the International Drug Policy Consortium. “They’ve actually been talking about different models from decriminalization to full-fledged legalization.”
Talks to decriminalize meth may seem premature for a country that still locks people up for smoking low-grade pot.
But in Thailand (and much of Southeast Asia) meth is far more popular than pot. It’s cheap, potent and enjoyed by rich and poor alike.
More than 90 percent of all drug arrests in Thailand involve meth: either little pink meth pills, cut with caffeine, or high-purity baggies of crystal meth.
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The meth supply in Thailand is seemingly unstoppable. Just as the United States borders cartel-run zones in Mexico, Thailand also abuts lawless terrain.
The hills just across its border, in Myanmar, are run like fiefdoms by narco-militias.
Many of these armed syndicates operate with tacit permission from Myanmar’s military. In other words, the drug labs next door to Thailand have total impunity to churn out meth — and there’s not much anyone, even a military junta, can do to stop them.
In Thailand, as in the U.S., meth users are often depicted as crazed, homicidal zombies — a view cultivated in part by the Thai state, which launched a vicious drug war last decade that left an estimated 2,500-plus dead.
“Right now, Thai people see drug users as essentially evil people that need to be punished,” Tanguay says.
“But in reality, we just don’t see the drug-crazed junkie here,” he says. “We see students using it to study. Or truck drivers using it to stay awake. We see people who harvest rubber, at three in the morning, using it to stay alert in the forest.”
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Many Thais are indeed using meth without exhibiting the worst symptoms. In Bangkok, dealers on motorbikes will deliver baggies filled with crystal meth for about $70. The substance resembles finely crushed glass and, if smoked, offers a blast of supreme confidence — supercharging the ego and lending an exhilarating vibe to mundane chores.
“You get an inner energy that wipes away fatigue,” says Wut, a Bangkok taxi driver in his 30s. He frequently smokes meth between passenger pickups.
But if he goes days without sleep, he says, the vigor sours into twitchy paranoia. “By day three, I hear weird voices in the distance,” he says. “I have this indistinct feeling that I’m being monitored or stalked. I’ll think everyone I pass is plotting against me.”
Under the current prohibition model, Tanguay says, Thailand’s government “has essentially given carte blanche to organized crime. [Criminals] set prices and control quality.”
But legalization, he says, would enable the government to oversee the manufacture of cleaner meth, cooked up in a regulated facility instead of a dirty jungle lab. The drug could be meted out to adult users in set amounts per week or month.
It could also be heavily taxed, of course, and ideally the proceeds would fund treatment centers — which users like Wut could visit if their habit spiraled out of control.
General Paiboon Koomchaya, reportedly said that the world had lost the war on drugs and that he was proposing to take methamphetamine off Thailand’s list of dangerous narcotics.
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However, after seriously discussing the legalization option, junta officials indicate that leaping to this model straightaway could be too jarring.
They’ve hinted at a more palatable scenario: a Portugal-style system in which small-time meth users skirt prison. Serious traffickers, however, are still hunted down and jailed. Thai authorities are also discussing decriminalizing marijuana and kratom, a leafy herbal stimulant.
From the junta’s perspective, the most compelling reason to decriminalize meth involves badly clogged prisons.
Thailand’s per capita incarceration rate is worse than China’s and on par with Russia’s — though not quite as bad as in the U.S., a world leader in locking up civilians for drug offenses.
Some Thai cells are currently so packed that inmates must sleep while spooning with strangers on dirty floors. Many are non-violent drug offenders — so decriminalization would help flush them out of the system.
Activists have long badgered Thai officials about bad prison conditions without much success. But in recent years a Thai princess, Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, has taken up the plight of prisoners as a personal cause.
In Thailand, royally backed initiatives are highly influential among elite lawmakers and treated as sacrosanct. The princess-led campaign — called “Kamlangjai,” which means moral support — urges Thai society to feel compassion for inmates, particularly pregnant women, and for “those who have made mistakes.”
This, Tanguay says, has helped to “trigger a furious rethink” of crime policy.
If Thailand actually decriminalizes meth, it would be veering away from the hardline anti-drug stance pushed by the U.S., its most powerful patron.
This would also produce an unexpected outcome: strict authoritarian rulers appearing more merciful toward addicts than Washington policymakers, who have a habit of lecturing Thailand (and other nations) on human rights.
Moreover, other junior partners in America’s drug war could potentially feel emboldened to take the decriminalization route — though they would likely risk losing U.S. anti-narcotics funding.
But, for now, it’s unclear whether or not this decriminalization push will amount to anything more than “politicians making nifty promises that never turn into anything real,” Tanguay says. “But this is a level of openness that has never happened before.”
Meanwhile, The Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) has reported that it will begin to support the government policy for drug addicts on November 1, 2016
Public Health Permanent Secretary Sophon Mekthon said that the ministry has developed treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts to turn them into patients.
The Public Health will ensure that the screening, treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts adhere to the same standards and focus on preventive mechanisms as those applied under To Be Number One and Phuen Jai Wai Roon center projects.
The Public Health plans to set up drug patient screening centers in general hospitals, community hospitals and those under care of the Department of Medical Services and the Department of Mental Health. Drug addicts are to be treated as patients so that Thailand will have similar success in handling the drug issue as in other countries.
This article, by Patrick Winn, originally appeared at GlobalPost.
Based in Bangkok, Patrick Winn produces written and video dispatches on Thailand and Burma for Global Post.
Winn’s work has also appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, USA Today and other outlets. He previously covered military affairs for Gannett in Washington D.C.
News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.
Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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