health | Yan's One Minute Math Blog

Common sense has returned to Thailand, when the present government admitted before the Year of the Dragon ushered in that the recreational use of cannabis or marijuana is wrong, which was decriminalized in the kingdom in 2022.

Mr. Chonlanan Srikaew, Thai health minister, said that the government will soon be moving a new bill that will allow the drug to be used only for health and medicinal purposes.

Indeed, a big blow to hundreds of marijuana dispensary owners, and to millions of tourists who’re planning to visit the “Land of a Thousand Smiles” to get a kick out of marijuana.

And to a small extent, the ban will also affect recreational math educators who’ve started working on new and fertile questions that incorporate the legalized use of marijuana recreationally.

Should “Thailand math” questions be allowed in recreational math classrooms?

Marijuana Math

In an earlier post on “Marijuana Math” under “Math Word of the Day,” on LinkedIn, I poked fun that in tourism the “fine” city of Singapore would likely be losing out against Thailand. I mentioned tongue-in-cheek a few positives of Thailand being a “marijuana mecca” for adventurous or uninhibited tourists, especially those who come from conservative countries that criminalize the use of the drug recreationally.

With the new cannabis law in the pipeline, the number of tourists bypassing budget-unfriendly, family-friendly Singapore for wallet-friendly, pro-same-sex unions Thailand should be expected to be far lower than initially feared.

Math on a High

Let’s indulge in some recreational Thai Math questions, while there is some time to be on a high. The window of opportunity to enjoy these soon-to-be-banned word problems is closing in fast, unless the power-hungry military stages another coup to put in place a new pro-cannabis government.

1. A MAGA patriot, who recently visited Thailand, was caught with 24 cannabis candies and chewing gums in his locker at Mar-a-Lago. The fine is $80 for each candy, and $90 for each chewing gum. If the judge sentenced the culprit for a total of $2,010, how many candles and how many chewing gums were seized?

2. Which has the higher chance of occurring in the next quarter century: Singapore qualifying for the World Cup, or Singapore allowing tourists (but not locals and permanent residents) to use marijuana recreationally?

3. If the medicinal use of marijuana debatably proved to be a quasi-effective cure in treating math anxiety, mathophobia, or other mathematical disorders in a-not-too-distant future, would the “fine” city condone its use among its oft-self-professed semi-innumerate citizens?

Like the days of the legalization of recreational cannabis in Thailand, the days of the recreational use of Thai Math questions, too, look numbered.

Recreationally or restrictively yours

References

Thai government plans to ban recreational cannabis use http://tinyurl.com/mt6fhs2m

Number of young children who accidentally ate cannabis edibles jumped 1,375% in five years, study finds http://tinyurl.com/2mwb55d9

On Monday, Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung reported that 80,000 seniors aged 60 and above have yet to take their Covid-19 booster shots, urging them to do so as the city-state is expecting a new wave of Omicron infections in the next few months.

The minister added that the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines were engineered more for the “wild-type” virus, and now that the coronavirus has mutated into the Delta and Omicron variants, we need at least three doses of vaccines for “effective” protection—and a fourth jab (or a second booster shot) is recommended for those who’ve so far lived on this planet for at least three scores and two tens (or four scores)—aged 80 and above.

Like thousands of my fellow skeptics, when we read or hear this kind of corona update from a local politician on a Monday, our skepticism index goes up at least twenty points. It sounds more like an indecent number of WHO-approved vaccines are nearing their expiry dates, so they need to come up with some creative eleventh-hour strategies not to waste away those tens of thousands of doses.

These days, even developing countries with low vaccination rates are likely to turn down any donated near-expiry vaccines from those high-GDP hoarders. They’d reply, “Thank you very much for your [“insincere”] donation!” followed by some PC excuses not to offend the donors.

One subtle way to salvage a fraction of these surplus doses is to use some mortality statistics to scare off those who’ve yet to be jabbed or boosted.

For instance, we’re statistically being told that the probability of unvaccinated seniors aged 60 and above ending in the intensive care unit (ICU) or dying from Covid-19 is 1/25, but the figure drops to 1/100 if they’ve been doubly jabbed, or nosedives to a mere 3/1000 if they’ve been boosted.

Minister Ong emphasized that “It makes a difference whether you have taken 0, 1, 2 or 3 shots.” So, the unvaxxed would better pay heed to his life-and-death warning unless they plan to journey to the other side sooner than later.

The sombre message is: Wake up to your minister’s advice if you don’t want to have a minister at your premature wake conducting nightly services to your loved ones and friends and colleagues. The decision is yours to act if you want to prolong your stay on this planet by an extra few years or decades.

Let’s pray that the unvaccinated or unboosted lot would fear Covid-19 more than Covid-🇸🇬, while not letting themselves be paralyzed by either one.

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