Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing a possible Cannabis Control Law. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Control Law Will Pass Anutin says - Anutin being the Interior Minister here in Thailand who was the person who was responsible for getting the momentum behind the Cannabis movement to begin with when it was delisted as a narcotic and legalized some two years ago. 

Quoting directly: "Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul appeared optimistic yesterday that a Bill on controlling Cannabis will be passed into law within the tenure of the current coalition Government, while a health advocacy group called for a total ban on using Cannabis for recreational purposes." Quoting further: "While a version of the Bill was already submitted to the House by the Bhumjaithai Party last September, another draft has been prepared by the Ministry of Public Health for former Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew to submit to the House for deliberation along with Bhumjaithai-advised draft said Mr. Anutin. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Tuesday made a U-turn on the Government's announced intention to re-list Cannabis as a narcotic drug." I don't think it's fair to say anybody made a U-turn. This has been an ongoing, evolving discussion with various actors within the coalition Government and at the end of it they decided "hey we are going to put this through Parliament". All very reasonable moves quite honestly. The notion that there were any “U-turns” were primarily spurred on as a result of media coverage which in my opinion was not the most accurate throughout this process. 

Quoting further: "It has been two years since the plant was decriminalized." Again the wording here. It wasn't strictly speaking decriminalized. It was legalized; it's legal. Quoting further: "Asked how confident he was this time that the Cannabis Control Bill would win enough support. Quote: "I believe in the PM's commitment and clear order to push to pass the Bill and now this coalition has up to 314 votes to cast in support of the Cannabis control Bill unlike the last coalition which only had 253 votes to do so when the Bill was voted down," he said. 

So again I think we see material changes here within the legislative sort of ecosystem if you will here in Thailand. So I think it's safe to presume, we are probably going to see some sort of Bill at some point come out of Parliament. I hope there's a good round of negotiation that goes through with this; I hope a lot of stakeholders get to weigh in; I hope everybody gets their interest noted and I hope a lot of folks if not everyone's interests are reflected in the final draft of this Bill that hopefully will ultimately be passed sooner rather than later and we can move on with dealing with the issue of Cannabis here in Thailand under a legally promulgated regulatory structure.