Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing a foreigner got arrested with Cannabis in Thailand. A large amount; it seems to about a kilogram. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article the Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: Russian Cannabis dealer arrested in Phuket. Quoting directly: "Wichit Phuket Police have arrested a Russian man accused of illegally selling Cannabis products and e-cigarettes worth nearly 1 million baht." Quoting further: "The Russian man identified by police (I am going to redact the name - name redacted here) - I know, I've seen folks trolling me in the comments, "well we can see it anyway. Yeah I get that okay. Yeah, you can go to the article and see this unredacted. I'm going to leave it out. I try as best I can to leave out names. Sometimes they come in and I forget, but I like to leave it redacted as best I can, mostly on the notion that people are innocent until proven guilty here in Thailand and until there's a full adjudication, maybe it's not a terrible idea, "discretion is the better part of valour" as we say, not that there's any valour associated with any of this. - But that said, quoting directly: "The Russian man identified by police as 24-year-old (named redacted) was arrested during a raid on a house off Chao Fa Road in Moo 1, Wichit, on Wednesday night (March 26). Joining the raid were officers from the Phuket Public Health Office.." - that's important to note. Public Health Ministry is getting more involved in Cannabis. If you take nothing else away from this video it's to understand that, okay. It's not so much anymore having to worry about law enforcement in the Cannabis space although law enforcement is now part of Public Health Ministry's sort of mandate when it comes to Cannabis, so act accordingly. That said, quoting further: "The person (name redacted) was found in possession of over 1 kg of dried cannabis buds, various cannabis extracts, e-cigarettes and more than 200 smoking devices, said an official report of the arrest." - 200 smoking devices. So, he's got like 200 bongs all sitting around in one place. I mean that is a lot of space being taken up by smoking devices. That said, quoting further: "Officials estimated the total value of the seized items to be close to 1 million Baht, the report added. He was taken into custody and faces multiple charges including selling and possessing controlled herbs for trade without permission under the Protection and Promotion of Traditional Thai Medicine Wisdom Act B.E. 2542, possessing Category 5 narcotics without authorization, and selling e-cigarettes that were illegally imported." 

So a couple of things going on here. One thing to understand is first, foreigners themselves per se are not necessarily allowed to engage in business that pertains to Cannabis here in Thailand. Now like with setting up a corporation and then being a minority shareholder, I know that happens, but that's a corporate interest. Understand, having a corporate interest in a business is very different than having the right to engage in a restricted trade here in Thailand. So, understand that foreigners engaged in Cannabis business outside of the lines if you will, illegally, can end up in this situation. Another point we brought up last week, e-cigarettes and so-called vaping can be a real problem as well which can in and of itself lead to arrest. 

So the thing to take away from this video and understand is, if you are a foreigner in Thailand engaging in the Cannabis business, you need to be very careful and you need to understand that just because you may have some interest in some ongoing business here in Thailand that is in the Cannabis space, that is a very different thing from being authorized to directly engage in the Cannabis business here in the Kingdom of Thailand.