December 3 will go down in the books as the day one of the maddest ideas in Thai political history came into effect: the complete ban on alcohol advertising in all media.

“Spokesman of the Public Health Ministry Md Suphan Srithamma, revealed that the Public Health Minister Md Mongkol Na Songkla announced at the November meeting between executive officials that the ministry will continue with the 24 hrs alcohol ban in all forms of media. It will inform provincial public health doctors across the country attending a meeting on November 27 of the ban. Once the ban takes effect, all provinces are obliged to follow the order,” quoted from Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department today.

“It will cut our advertising revenue by a quarter,” said the editor of one Bangkok-based magazine.

The bigger fish will be able to keep swimming whilst the smaller ones die an untimely death and slowly float to the surface – twisted, deformed and wretched – along with all the other little fish that tried to make something of themselves in the big pond.

The impact on the media goes without saying, but another editor said today that “There will have to be ways around it.”

People are not going to stop drinking because of a ban on advertising. People already know alcohol exists, and the sudden elimination of it form their direct line of vision will not mean it is instantly forgotten.

If anything, now people will become more curious because of the enormous amount of publicity the passing of this bill has achieved over the past several weeks. If ever there was a time to see some irony in the government’s actions it would be now: when all the alcohol companies are getting vast amounts of exposure for free and seeing themselves thrust into the victim’s role in the public eye.

There will be no more Tiger Beer girls. Jobs will be lost. Advertisers, who are devilishly clever at the best of times, will have to come up with all new, inventive ways to sell their products. There are still products to be sold, and the larger companies will find a way to reach the consumer. There is always a way; especially in Thailand.

The smaller alcohol companies, however, may face a similar fate to that of smaller magazines and newspapers. Hopefully, the government will realize that they are going to be destroying great chunks of revenue that benefit a great many lives.

Nightlife will suffer also. Thailand has recently been graced with an influx of international bands and DJs, partly thanks to major sponsorship from the likes of Singha Beer, 100 Pipers and so on. This sponsorship has not been eliminated altogether, but the goalposts have been shifted somewhat. Again, there will have to be a way to work around this, but it will surely mean, no matter what, that funding is drastically cut.

It could be the end of Bangkok’s revitalized nightlife status, which will anger foreigners and locals alike, and Thailand will lose out to Singapore and KL once more.

These are strange times. Yesterday I watched a man with a persistent itch he was too lazy to scratch, take a knife and cut a piece of flesh from his shoulder roughly one inch squared. He was a foolish man.

Techno’ tags: Asia, Coup, Government, Bangkok, Thailand, Thai Politics, Thai Ban Alcohol Advertising