A university dean’s challenge to a public debate about weed liberalization with tycoon Chuwit Kamolvisit has so far met no response.
Chuwit, a maverick former lawmaker who has recently taken a staunchly anti-cannabis stance, has not commented on the challenge issued by Panthep Puapongpan of Rangsit University, who himself is a strong advocate of weed’s decriminalization.
Panthep, the 52-year-old dean of the Institute of Medicine and a supporter of the political party behind last year’s back door decriminalization, said Chuwit’s recent theatrics expressing angry opposition to the cannabis policy have been one-sided and ignorant of the benefits.
“For the public interest in learning more about marijuana, I invite Chuvit Kamolvisit to debate with me on equal sides of the public until doubts are gone,” he wrote on social media. “This is so we can educate the public and Thailand can learn the truth about marijuana together.”
His Wednesday challenge was hailed online. He said that he would wait one day for Chuwit’s response, which as of Friday had not come.
Chuwit had supported decriminalization until late last month, when he threw a temper tantrum at his downtown hotel after police came to search a cannabis dispensary operating there. Performing for the cameras he invited, Chuwit dramatically swept some of the shop’s products off a shelf and spat on photos of Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and other Bhumjaithai figures. That marked the beginning of his very public crusade against cannabis liberalization.
Panthep, a former spokesman of the anti-democratic Yellow Shirt movement, said that it was hypocritical of Chuwit to oppose weed for harming the youth when the dispensary had been selling buds for months at his Davis Hotel in Soi Sukhumvit 24. He said 61-year-old Chuwit’s only grinding a political axe to discredit Bhumjaithai.
Coincidentally or not, Thailand is weeks away from a general election many are trying to turn into a referendum on legal weed. Chuwit, who spent two years in jail for bulldozing his own tenants, has insisted he is not doing anyone’s bidding.
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