Unhappy Hour

Illustration for TIME by Jon Krause

Who would buy Sir Liam Donaldson a pint these days? Not many Brits, I expect. The chief medical officer's proposal to tackle the great British scourge of binge drinking — a minimum price of 75 cents per unit of alcohol — was shot down by almost everyone from 10 Downing Street to the bloke propping up the bar at the Slug and Lettuce.

Yet nearly 10,000 km away, in a Southeast Asian country with roughly the same population (60 million), Sir Liam might have some sympathizers. Thailand has one of the world's...

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