FalangJaiDee Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 :shock: Read this on Bangkokpost. ------------------------------------------------------ Minimum age raised to 25 for buyers of booze APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL Health authorities have stepped up measures to curb alcohol consumption among youth by moving up the minimum legal age of buyers from 18 to 25 years. Narong Sahamethapat, deputy chief of the Disease Control Department, said yesterday that the idea was proposed by a network of parents early this year during a public hearing of a draft bill to control alcoholic drinks. The measure to raise the legal minimum age of buyers is part of a national campaign to save Thai youth from alcohol abuse, he said, adding that it has already been incorporated into Article 28 of the draft. Under the bill, the following areas will be designated as alcohol-free zones _ temples, state offices, schools, universities and other places of education. Also, the authorities plan to declare an alcohol-free day when alcohol sales and promotional activities are prohibited. Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla said earlier that a ban on alcohol advertising in all forms of media will be announced on Monday, while the draft alcohol product control bill will be proposed to the cabinet and the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) for approval as soon as possible. If approved, it will be the country's first law that gives health officials comprehensive power to tackle all alcohol-related issues, similar to the Tobacco Control Law. A study conducted this year by the National Economic and Social Development Board found the number of young drinkers, aged 15-24, has increased from 21.6% to 23.5%. It also found that Thais started drinking at a younger age, with almost 50% of new drinkers aged between 15-19 years old. Bundit Sornpaisarn, director of an academic centre dealing with alcohol problems, said the measure to raise the minimum legal age of buyers to 25 would effectively reduce youngsters' access to alcohol. Previous studies on alcohol controls showed that the earlier teenagers were exposed to alcohol promotions, the sooner they started drinking, he said. Wallop Tangkananurak, a member of the NLA, urged the government to hike the excise tax on alcoholic products. Phra Ratchdhamanithet, better known as Phra Payom Kalayano, voiced strong support for the anti-drinking movement. He said the drinking of alcohol, which is prohibited in the five Buddhist precepts, is much more harmful and sinful than lottery betting. Thailand ranks No. 5 in the world for consumption of alcohol. On average, a Thai consumes 14 litres of alcoholic drinks per year, according to the Thailand Development Research Institute. Now obviously, not wanting to get TF into trouble I wont critisize. But.. This doesnt directly affect me, but I suspect it will affect quite a few members here. So does this mean my mate back in England travels all the way to Thaiaind for a holiday but can't legally buy a beer? Does it also mean my 24 gf (okay dont actually have one but..) can't have a beer with me in a bar? Or worse, will this mean under 25's cant get into bars and clubs? :roll: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalangJaiDee Posted October 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Like i say, it doesnt directly affect me either. However, we might be only left with old wrinkled women with big buffont hair to look at when we go to a bar. :wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannyboy Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 i cant see it really happening, why would they chance losing a big percentage of holiday makers. this would happen if 18-25 year olds thought they could not get a drink in a bar or club in thailand......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Princess Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Alcohol is a poison, so I welcome this law. Run Zammo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Princess Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 It seems like Thailand becomes more and more boring and restrictive every year. Dannyboy is right...they will lose a lot of their tourists but as usual the approach is "do first, think and weigh consequences later". I for one will be glad to leave in a few months if BKK continues to lose her shine. I'm sure if this law comes to pass, in a few months we'll see a hasty retraction on some pretext or the other. Ah gotta love the concept of "face". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalangJaiDee Posted October 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Alcohol is a poison, so I welcome this law. :shock: You sound llke George Bush... Thats one reason you dont tell a retarded child he can be anything he wants when he grows up.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalangJaiDee Posted October 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 your not smoking the waccy baccy tonight are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LingBaah Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 This report says "On average, a Thai consumes 14 litres of alcoholic drinks per year." Uhhh, that doesn't seem like a whole lot if you include my favorite beverage, beer. I think I managed that in about 3 weeks of vacation last month! Thinking back to what I've heard about beer consumption, the Czech republic is consistently the top performer, and beer is less expensive than soda there. I consulted Wikipedia for the table below. Thailand is not even in the top 35... clearly there is room for improvement here. More draft specials are what is needed. Special consideration for the Australians is given with a *: * Note that Darwin, Australia, has the highest beer consumption of any city in the world at 230 L/y. Thanks to MikeAussieGuy, who had told me this fact about Darwin last month, and here's the proof! Rank Country Consumption (L/yr) 1 Czech Republic 156.9 2 Ireland 131.1 3 Germany 115.8 4 Australia* 109.9 5 Austria 108.3 6 United Kingdom 99.0 7 Belgium 93.0 8 Denmark 89.9 9 Finland 85.0 10 Luxembourg 84.4 11 Slovakia 84.1 12 Spain 83.8 13 U.S.A. 81.6 14 Croatia 81.2 15 Netherlands 79.0 16 New Zealand 77.0 17 Hungary 75.3 18 Poland 69.1 19 Canada 68.3 20 Portugal 59.6 21 Bulgaria 59.5 22 South Africa 59.2 23 Russia 58.9 24 Venezuela 58.6 25 Romania 58.2 26 Cyprus 58.1 27 Switzerland 57.3 28 Gabon 55.8 29 Norway 55.5 30 Mexico 51.8 31 Sweden 51.5 32 Japan 51.3 33 Brazil 47.6 34 South Korea 38.5 35 Colombia 36.8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marky12345 Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 I bet Thailand is top of the fatality list for drink driving, that list isnt worth the webspace it is written on. If i was a 20 yo Thai with a bit of cash to spend and couldnt have a social drink to relieve the stress of a hard days work, id look at my options and see weed, speed, ecstacty, coke, yabba, smack as the best alternatives. Lets fsce it people like to get high and no amount of prohibition is going to stop this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunsnow Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Just to comment: The 14 l per every person in Thailand must mean 100% of alcohol. That is the usual way consuption is followed in statistics. Compare 10 l per person of 100% alcohol in 2005 in Finland. (This fact was not very obvious from the wording of Bangkok Post, imho). And so many are really overestimating some possible effects on tourism by this kind of little laws. After all, 18-25 yrs old tourists are not very big number, they dont have that much money etc..and government in Thailand does not need to give a rat's ass about them doing some lousy backpacking anyway. (Altough I would have been pretty pissed off if I had not been able to drink beer on my first trip...And I was not backpacking lol) After all, the perfect tourists are clean, nice healthy families with big pockets. ps. Thailand will now have one of the highest age limits in the whole world! That is cool! So now, bring on the pot, children! Lesser evil Seriously, this fact that alcohol is such a big problem in Thailand surpised me... And definetly it is not the fault of too low age limit...(After all, if lifting the limit to 25 would solve something, that would have been in most countries, Finland included) That just happens to be the easiest way along with prohibiting advertisement. No need to figure out some hard campaigns or education or support and help for the society. Just go for the easy measures...:-) (But one easy measurement, that hits hard would be there - lifting alchol taxes, and a lot! That works, along comes the bootlegging, sure but...it works but it is tricky road and needs balancing) pps. These are coming from a guy who is living in a country where government is crying over alchol every friggin' year, and if it is not government crying, then it is the consumers crying against government and so on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marky12345 Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Just to comment: The 14 l per every person in Thailand must mean 100% of alcohol. That is the usual way consuption is followed in statistics. Compare 10 l per person of 100% alcohol in 2005 in Finland. (This fact was not very obvious from the wording of Bangkok Post, imho).And so many are really overestimating some possible effects on tourism by this kind of little laws. After all, 18-25 yrs old tourists are not very big number, they dont have that much money etc..and government in Thailand does not need to give a rat's ass about them doing some lousy backpacking anyway. (Altough I would have been pretty pissed off if I had not been able to drink beer on my first trip...And I was not backpacking lol) After all, the perfect tourists are clean, nice healthy families with big pockets. ps. Thailand will now have one of the highest age limits in the whole world! That is cool! So now, bring on the pot, children! Lesser evil 18-25 year old tourists often have no kids or mortgages to pay, and your saying they dont have much disposable income, i went to Thailand aged 24 the first time with 4 friends who were 21, now 7 years later all of us are very wealthy and return to Thailand because our first experience was so enjoyable, im guessing without beer it wouldnt have been the same, hence we wouldnt have returned. 18-25 year olds will also one day be 38-45, with a wife and kids who having spent their youthful holidays elsewhere to Thailand may well be far more interested in going back to those places to reminise with their wife and kids. Saying that surely they wont push this law in tourist areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunsnow Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 18-25 year old tourists often have no kids or mortgages to pay, and your saying they dont have much disposable income, i went to Thailand aged 24 the first time with 4 friends who were 21, now 7 years later all of us are very wealthy and return to Thailand because our first experience was so enjoyable, im guessing without beer it wouldnt have been the same, hence we wouldnt have returned. 18-25 year olds will also one day be 38-45, with a wife and kids who having spent their youthful holidays elsewhere to Thailand may well be far more interested in going back to those places to reminise with their wife and kids. I know, I know. But some of us, who visited Thailand when we were already working, under 25 and had money to spend, consist minority I presume from the age group comparing to back packers with tight budgets? That is what I was thinkin'. and thus my point was: the biggest tourist groups consist of people with families and well, rich old men. But you have the good point of from tight budget to medium budget under 25yrs olds - old experienses have affect on choises later on the age! (Reminds me of one funny ad that runs every year in my worker unions magazine, around 1st of May parties - it has some drunk looking student sitting on ground and says something like this "Don't kick the engineering student - he might be your boss someday" ) But sure, these kind of rules create some funny situations - like young honeymooners - "sorry sir, we can't bring champagne and strawberries to your room you are too young" :-D Other stuff, more political analysis from this kind of social order programs and how they remind those "populistic" TRT programs, bangkokpundit.blogspot.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marky12345 Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Rank Country Consumption (L/yr) 1 Czech Republic 156.9 2 Ireland 131.1 3 Germany 115.8 4 Australia* 109.9 5 Austria 108.3 6 United Kingdom 99.0 7 Belgium 93.0 8 Denmark 89.9 9 Finland 85.0 10 Luxembourg 84.4 11 Slovakia 84.1 12 Spain 83.8 13 U.S.A. 81.6 14 Croatia 81.2 15 Netherlands 79.0 16 New Zealand 77.0 17 Hungary 75.3 18 Poland 69.1 19 Canada 68.3 20 Portugal 59.6 21 Bulgaria 59.5 22 South Africa 59.2 23 Russia 58.9 24 Venezuela 58.6 25 Romania 58.2 26 Cyprus 58.1 27 Switzerland 57.3 28 Gabon 55.8 29 Norway 55.5 30 Mexico 51.8 31 Sweden 51.5 32 Japan 51.3 33 Brazil 47.6 34 South Korea 38.5 35 Colombia 36.8 This list is totally wrong because the French arent on there, the French drink more wine then anyone, in a responsible manner i must add, hence surely this would have got them into the top 35. The best way to judge how bad a countries drink problem is buy the amount of cases of psoriasis of the liver, and the rate of growing cases. Its gone up something silly like 500% in the last 10 years in England Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunsnow Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 This list is totally wrong because the French arent on there, the French drink more wine then anyone, in a responsible manner i must add, hence surely this would have got them into the top 35. Maybe the original poster was not clear enough, just little notice that you got it maybe a bit wrong...If you look the figures, they are huge. This is a list of beer consuption, not total pure alchohol consumption. (Checks really are lifting their voices now in EU when some idiots are thinkin' lifting tax in the whole EU on booze and that would hit hard those little breweries and beer drinkers in this new EU country.) Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marky12345 Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 This list is totally wrong because the French arent on there, the French drink more wine then anyone, in a responsible manner i must add, hence surely this would have got them into the top 35. Maybe the original poster was not clear enough, just little notice that you got it maybe a bit wrong...If you look the figures, they are huge. This is a list of beer consuption, not total pure alchohol consumption. (Checks really are lifting their voices now in EU when some idiots are thinkin' lifting tax in the whole EU on booze and that would hit hard those little breweries and beer drinkers in this new EU country.) Cheers. Czech women are fine no need for beer goggles to do the do with one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LingBaah Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Rank Country Consumption (L/yr) 1 Czech Republic 156.9 2 Ireland 131.1 3 Germany 115.8 4 Australia* 109.9 5 Austria 108.3 6 United Kingdom 99.0 7 Belgium 93.0 8 Denmark 89.9 9 Finland 85.0 10 Luxembourg 84.4 11 Slovakia 84.1 12 Spain 83.8 13 U.S.A. 81.6 14 Croatia 81.2 15 Netherlands 79.0 16 New Zealand 77.0 17 Hungary 75.3 18 Poland 69.1 19 Canada 68.3 20 Portugal 59.6 21 Bulgaria 59.5 22 South Africa 59.2 23 Russia 58.9 24 Venezuela 58.6 25 Romania 58.2 26 Cyprus 58.1 27 Switzerland 57.3 28 Gabon 55.8 29 Norway 55.5 30 Mexico 51.8 31 Sweden 51.5 32 Japan 51.3 33 Brazil 47.6 34 South Korea 38.5 35 Colombia 36.8 This list is totally wrong because the French arent on there, the French drink more wine then anyone, in a responsible manner i must add, hence surely this would have got them into the top 35. The best way to judge how bad a countries drink problem is buy the amount of cases of psoriasis of the liver, and the rate of growing cases. Its gone up something silly like 500% in the last 10 years in England Marky, this list is about Beer, Bia, Bierre, Cerveza... you get the idea! My post was "Beer Drinkin Facts" and all I was talking about only beer. By the way, a disease which affects the liver you have heard about is "Cirrhosis"... and Psoriasis is a skin problem. Sunsnow, everything I said about the beer statistics were factual, but you are right. Going into this I was well aware that the statistic in the article was referring to a standard of 80 proof grain alcohol, or 40% alcohol. You would have to multiply by 8 if using a standard 5% alc/vol. beer, or an equivalent of 112 L/Yr if you were the average Thai consumer that was drinking beer only. The article didn't qualify that number... and it got me thinking about how much beer gets consumed in Thailand compared to other countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marky12345 Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 Ive been working to hard, i must have Psoriasis on my brain for this error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sabaisabai Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 NOT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sabaisabai Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 NOT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizardo Posted October 14, 2006 Report Share Posted October 14, 2006 by the same token...as the french are not listed..does that apply to europes least most purchasers of deodorant....??????????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted October 15, 2006 Report Share Posted October 15, 2006 Rank Country Consumption (L/yr) 1 Czech Republic 156.9 2 Ireland 131.1 3 Germany 115.8 4 Australia* 109.9 5 Austria 108.3 6 United Kingdom 99.0 7 Belgium 93.0 8 Denmark 89.9 9 Finland 85.0 10 Luxembourg 84.4 disappointed we only made second place ... guess i'm gonna have to drink more !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominique355 Posted October 15, 2006 Report Share Posted October 15, 2006 ...and why is the age of 25 the right age to start drinking alcohol? Why isn't it 27 or 33 or 16 or whatever? Why is a young person able to vote with 18, able to drive a motor vehicle with 18, able to kill in the uniform of a soldier with 18, but unable to drink a beer after? Yesterday, in an attack of brain failure I went to Rachada Soi 24, went into a place with live music (Snopman) and wanted to get a drink. They only sell it by the bottle! So I could not get a single glas of Black Soda, but they would sell me a whole bottle of Black Label. Great! Two days a go I wanted to buy a few cans of beer in Carrefour, but when I reached the cashier, the lady said I either have to buy 48 cans or none at all (it was 3 PM). So this is how Thailand fight alcohlism! I am sure they will succeed! (Yeah, right!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeusbheld Posted October 15, 2006 Report Share Posted October 15, 2006 Rank Country Consumption (L/yr) 1 Czech Republic 156.9 2 Ireland 131.1 3 Germany 115.8 4 Australia* 109.9 5 Austria 108.3 6 United Kingdom 99.0 7 Belgium 93.0 8 Denmark 89.9 9 Finland 85.0 10 Luxembourg 84.4 disappointed we only made second place ... guess i'm gonna have to drink more !!! your numbers count toward thailand's total, that's why ireland fell short, and thailand has new anti-drinking laws. all because of an accounting error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankenburner2 Posted October 15, 2006 Report Share Posted October 15, 2006 NOT take your own advice next time whilst pondering whether or not to post.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thai1 Posted October 15, 2006 Report Share Posted October 15, 2006 Just a crazy and stupid law.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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