Word: songkran
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Like Britain, Thailand has embarked upon a rocky legislative road, hoping that new laws will fix an old problem. While Brits debated minimum pricing, Thais were arguing the merits of prohibiting alcohol sales during Songkran, or Thai New Year, which runs April 13-15 and is the country's most important annual holiday. This is a bit like Sir Liam banning booze at Christmas. Better known among tourists as the Water Festival, Songkran is famous for mass water-pistol fights and - with millions of Thais visiting their families - insanely busy highways. During last year's festival, 360 people died...
...with his poor ratings, making booze more expensive is political suicide. Brown's Thai counterpart Abhisit enjoys greater popularity among his people, but still cannot afford to anger them - not when his country's unemployment rate has (like Britain's) spiked sharply. But Abhisit needn't have worried. With Songkran fast approaching, the ban was scrapped - not because it was unfair to the responsible majority of Thai drinkers but because, like minimum pricing, there was no guarantee it would make any difference. Thais would either stockpile booze or buy it under the counter...
...related advertising, and - at a time when Britain was liberalizing its licensing laws to allow for round-the-clock drinking - restricted the sale of alcohol to only two periods: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to midnight. But Thailand's alcohol-control act has changed little. Take Songkran deaths: in 2007, 361 people died on the roads during the festival; in 2008, with the act in force, 360 died - only one life saved. More people are killed by drunk driving in Thailand in two weeks than in Britain in an entire year...
...about quick-fix, feel-good bans and start enforcing the laws you already have. In Britain, drunk driving causes 16% (rather than half, as in Thailand) of road deaths, thanks to a combination of strong policing, heavy penalties and shocking public-awareness campaigns. A three-day booze ban over Songkran will change nothing. Better policing will...
...Year. On Dec. 31, western New Year's Eve is celebrated with parties, concerts and fireworks. A few weeks later the country stages massive celebrations in honor of Chinese New Year. Finally, on April 13 Thailand celebrates the first day of the traditional Thai calendar with Songkran, a three-day festival marked by parades, feasts and a water-throwing free-for-all in which people roam the streets with squirt guns, bowls of water and garden hoses, drenching passersby--and themselves--in the process. The water represents purification, but it also brings the revelers welcome relief: April is the hottest...