Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the situation involving the Cannabis issue here in Thailand. This has been something of a hot topic and it's becoming increasingly, acutely concerning as of the time of this video. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Weed protesters 'not going anywhere'. Quoting directly: "Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin played down the gathering of Cannabis advocacy groups outside Government House who are opposed to the relisting of the plant and vowed to stay until a law to control its use was enacted. Mr Somsak," and I think that's interesting:  "vowed to stay until a law to control its use was enacted." Enacted! Not just some "Oh, we made up a Ministerial Regulation" where overnight an agricultural product went from being a controlled herb, to a narcotic. Quoting further: "Mr Somsak said on Monday the protesters were exercising their Constitutional right and trying to make their voices heard by senior government figures. However he noted that the Prime Minister had not given," - you know for all of the press saying "there's a U-turn", "the policy is changing", da da da, that's not what is happening. We're going through hashing this out, that's what's happening. Quoting again: "He noted that the Prime Minister had not given any special instructions about the protest or the Cannabis issue." Quoting further: "Nevertheless, The Phue Thai Minister stressed that the door would continue to be left open for medicinal use and stimulating the economy. He also gave assurances that business operators would be given time to adjust to minimize the impact of relisting." How about you just not do it?

As noted in other videos that I've done on here, there's already the controlled herb license. For higher grades of the product if you will if you are talking about THC or even CBD or processed versions of the product, why not create new licensing for those gradients moving upward, and leave the system as it exists right now and then build up from it? Treat the current system as a foundation and then build up from there. Rather than trying to change everything in a system that seems to be working in a situation where the benefit to the country seems to far outweigh the underlying cost to the country. Quoting further: "Asked if the Bill to regulate Cannabis use would be unnecessary because the plant would be put back on the list of narcotic drugs," so "oh this is unnecessary because we're just going to put it on the list". I love that, "because we say so"! And I love the media and certain groups out there who have gone on and on about Democracy and rule of law, but then on this issue it's "Oh, no, no, just on a whim we can do whatever we want!" Pretty hypocritical, just one man's opinion. Quoting again: "Asked if the bill to regulate cannabis use would be unnecessary because the plant would be put back on the list of narcotic drugs, he said talks were still ongoing and people must comply with the current regulations until there are changes." Well that's well put, and again, media, stop this notion that this is some foregone conclusion. Quoting again: "Talks were still on going." The legislative process is churning along. Report on that. Stop reporting as if it's a done deal. Quoting further: "With the Pheu Thai led Government planning to relist Cannabis as a narcotic drug, speculation was rife that a law needed to control the plant's use would be unnecessary." Because we were just going to call it a narcotic. Just overnight, we were going to just throw a million people who built businesses, had sweat equity in it, invested money, are trying to do things legally. I mean I'm really tired of this being placed in the paradigm of "well it was illegal before so we can just do whatever." No, no. That's not the way to look at this. The way to look at it is it is legal now and people have relied on that legality to create businesses off of this and to just cast them aside is not only pretty cold-hearted, I think it's politically foolish and I also think it's economically foolish because look at all the benefits. Again Thailand is one of the few jurisdictions in the world that is not having problems in their commercial real estate space and I can't stress enough how bad that situation is back in the West and it's something we should avoid if we can here in Thailand. 

Meanwhile, again not withstanding all the hyperbole and hysteria, "people are going to die, now everybody's going to go crazy! 20 billion Baht supposedly in psychiatric bills associated with this”; which I don't even know where they came up with that number. Despite all this hyperbole, anybody can just look around and ascertain for themselves that catastrophe has not struck Thailand as a result of Cannabis being legal. Quoting further: "Bhumjaithai Party leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the Government should listen to both sides of the story." Yeah, and also I would add we should promulgate an actual law as I have said in other videos. Let's get folks into Parliament, let's work it through that way. Again this was de-listed under emergency power, and I still wonder if there's the authority to just relist it on a whim. I don't really see how that is in line with what is called the Doctrine of Codification in a Civil Law context, where just on a whim oh well, a couple of guys got together and just said "well it's now the policy that this is a narcotic!" As I said in another video, a bouquet of flowers could, under that kind of scenario, a bouquet of roses could overnight be considered a narcotic if a few people just say so? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 

So long story short and the thing to take away from this video is I do think Cannabis is stimulating Thailand's economy, so I think it is a good idea and I think it's very reasonable and it's good to see the current Minister of Public Health maintaining a cooler head and maintaining a reasonable tone in talking about this and maintaining a reasonable tone in talking about at the end of the day all voices do need to be heard, and at the end of the day a rational decision, a rational, in my opinion, a rational legal framework needs to be designed to not only regulate but also tax Cannabis here in the Kingdom of Thailand.