Hazy

We can just picture our topnotcher senator Robin Padilla stroking his moustache, a regular Archimedes in Barong Tagalog, when he conjured up this “brilliant” idea — no less than a magic bullet for what ails the Philippines. Medical marijuana!

Just a little puff, a gentle easing of the pain and, voilà, all’s well. It’s all so therapeutic; so kumbaya. Except amid the billowing smoke and the promise of pain relief, Thailand has already been there, done that — and now it is choking on the hazy, pungent consequences.

Thailand, you see, based on interviews we conducted last year in the bustling streets of Bangkok, started just like our good senator envisions — with the supposedly pure and innocent medical use of weed.

A little here, a little there, all strictly controlled, of course. But the next thing our Thai neighbors knew, cannabis cafes had sprouted like particularly aggressive weeds after a monsoon rain. One minute you’re prescribing CBD oil for back pain, the next you’ve got neon-lit dispensaries offering “happy brownies” and “space cakes.”

It wouldn’t be far-fetched to think of the Land of Smiles suddenly becoming the Land of the Stoned, with many shrewd businessmen chasing tourist dollars while conveniently overlooking the potential social fallout.

And that fallout, according to recent reports, includes a disturbing uptick in criminality, with some officials directly linking the increased availability of cannabis to the rise in thefts and public disturbances.

Now, Senator Padilla promises strict rules. He’s got it all figured out, apparently. But really? This is the Philippines. We can’t even regulate traffic in Metro Manila, let alone a burgeoning, potentially chaotic cannabis industry. Try EDSA during rush hour, and then tell me we’re ready to handle the complexities of legal weed.

Yet Padilla, ad nauseum, says it’s for medical purposes only. Sure. Because we all know how well that works. Medical marijuana becomes recreational faster than you can say “bong.” It’s the gateway drug to, well, more drugs.

And then what? Are we, as a nation, ready for that conversation? Because Thailand, despite its vibrant tourism sector and relatively more developed economy, clearly wasn’t. They’re now scrambling to put the genie back in the bottle, a task as easy as herding cats on a roller coaster.

Some experts — the kind who actually study these things, the wonks with their charts and graphs — argue that legalization can work. They point to Uruguay, Canada, places where they presumably have their act together.

But the Philippines is not even in the same ballpark. We’re a nation still grappling with the fallout of previous, disastrous drug wars. We’re still trying to untangle the mess left by “Oplan Tokhang.” Do we really need another one, this time fueled by legal weed, however well-intentioned? Do we want to trade one public health crisis for another?

Thailand’s cautionary tale, and it is a cautionary tale, isn’t simply about the plant itself. It’s about governance. It’s about our capacity, or lack thereof, to actually manage something this complex, this potentially volatile.

It’s about whether we can resist the siren call of quick fixes, easy money, and the allure of appearing “progressive.” Right now, the evidence, and the traffic on EDSA, suggests we can’t.

So, maybe, just maybe, we should put down the metaphorical joint, take a deep, clear breath and think this through. We cannot be un-baking a cannabis cake based on a recipe for a disaster.