Transcript of the above video: 

I thought of making this video, I actually thought of this as two different videos and then I decided, you know what, it's all Cannabis, let's go ahead and make it one video. I thought of making this initially after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com. This was actually going to be a "foreigners behaving badly" video and then I was reading some stuff about Cannabis further and I'll get into that in a minute, and I decided to make this sort of longer form video getting into in depth stuff regarding some new regulations and things. That said, the article is titled: Taxi driver offered fare payment in Cannabis. Yeah, again it was originally going to be a "foreigners behaving badly" video so suffice it to say, that was where I was going on that. 

Meanwhile real quick before we get into this, I do some deeper dives into things like Cannabis Law and into things like expat related things, banking, tax, visas, on our paid news service, Integrity News Service. You can email us: [email protected] to learn more about that. While I'm also talking here, I think it's worth pointing out, Pancake Palace. It's a new restaurant my better half and I have opened here in downtown Bangkok. As the name implies, we have pancakes, but we have all-day breakfast, breakfast anytime, American style breakfast by the way. We also have American style diner food: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, chilli bowls, pork chops, all those; grilled cheese sandwiches by the way, something I oftentimes miss. We do have grilled cheese sandwiches and that is something that's a little hard to get. Also French toast, we do have French toast on the menu, so another thing. But if you are interested, Pancake Palace, link in the description below. 

Back to this: Taxi driver offered fare payment in Cannabis, from the Bangkok Post. Quoting directly: "A taxi driver filed a police complaint in Pattaya after a foreign passenger who could not pay the fare from Suvarnabhumi Airport offered him a bag of Cannabis instead. The driver, identified as Prachuap, 54, reported the incident to Muang Pattaya Police. Mr. Prachuap said a foreign passenger, whose nationality was not stated, hailed him at Suvarnabhumi Airport, wanting to go to a hotel in Pattaya. The fair was agreed on at 2,000 baht. The Foreigner said he would have his wife pay on arrival, Mr. Prachuap told the police." My big question is, who arrives at the airport with no cash? Quoting further: "Arriving at the hotel, the passenger gave the driver 900 baht in cash." So you arrived at the airport and came out of the airport with 30 bucks American, in a foreign country? Okay! "His wife, also of unknown nationality", - so apparently not Thai it looks like, - "came outside to meet him, but said she only had 50 baht." I mean the whole thing sounds like an attempted scam, really! That said, quoting further: "Mr. Prachuap told police he then asked for the outstanding 1,050 baht. The couple said they had no money and offered him a big packet of Cannabis instead of money." So we are operating the whole, "cash grass, or you know, the other word nobody rides free" kind of thing? I mean huh? And by the way, that's not like the law in Thailand, so you can't substitute Cannabis for cash. Just saying. That said, quoting further:  "The cabbie said he refused to accept it and told them he would report the incident to Police. The couple became angry" - Why? This guy is a cabbie. He wants his money. By the way, 2,000 baht from Suvarnabhumi to Pattaya, that's a pretty good deal - "and fled inside the hotel, leaving him confused and unpaid. So he went to the police station." Yeah. Quoting further: “Mr. Prachuap said he had previous experience with passengers who did not have enough money, and he had helped them. His latest experience had soured him against helping other passengers in the future." Yeah, I can‘t say I blame him. Quoting further: "He said cabbies were often in the news for behaving badly toward tourists, but this time the roles were reversed, and he had not known what to do other than turn to police for help." Yeah, that's just really kind of a sad state of affairs with regard to that, and the only thing I can take away from this is say, Cannabis is not cash. It's not how it works here; this isn't a Cheech and Chong movie.

That said, moving over to the other half of the title of this: Announcements not being laws. I recently got a link sent to me from somebody. The link went to the Phuket News that is thephuketnews.com, and the article is titled: Phuket announces new guidelines for cannabis sales. Note, the phraseology here. Guidelines, announcements, okay? The person that sent me this, sent it to me and said, "and it says that a law was in The Royal Gazette which was contrary to what you said in your videos." Hey, announcements aren't necessarily laws, okay. As I have discussed in other videos, the Parliament has not acted on this; we have not seen a promulgated law. Now let me be clear, I am not saying that the Royal Gazette does not promulgate announcements that have legal effect, okay? Regulations that may have legal effect, but it's a different thing than a promulgated law, okay? So that is the fundamental thing to understand here. We are talking about an announcement in the Royal Gazette regarding regulation of Cannabis in Thailand. I know people will say "oh that's a semantic point." You are on a legal channel here, okay. Yeah, these fine points make a difference. And for those who want to ask, "well what's an announcement? what would that be analogous to for example say in American jurisprudence?” I would look at it as being analogous to like an Executive Order or some other regulation published in the US Federal Register, okay? It may not necessarily be a law. Now as a practical matter you may have to deal with it for a while but until we see a promulgated law, I have serious issues with all of this from a legal standpoint whether or not it has the same legal effect as law, and whether or not it could not be challenged, because there isn't a promulgated law here, as I have discussed in many other videos. 

That said, quoting directly: "The announcement was made during a press conference at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday July 9, chaired by Phuket Governor Sophon Suwannarat. Somsuk Sampanprateep, Deputy Director of the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office explained the main points to the Ministry of Public Health's announcement." It is important to understand that phraseology. Again, not a law. The person that sent me this said, oh well the law was published." It's not a law, it's an announcement. Quoting further: "Which was published in the Royal Gazette on June 25th and came into effect on June 26th. The updated rules clarify that Cannabis is now considered a 'controlled herb'." It was always considered a controlled herb. I don't know why that's particular news. Quoting further: "With usage permitted primarily for "medical purposes" and under strict regulatory conditions." Well so they say, so the Ministry of Public Health says. As I continue to state, apropos of what law? What gives you the legal authority to do that? Quoting further: "Mr. Somsuk explained that the new framework supports Medical Cannabis access for patients with qualified conditions and aims to balance Public Health with economic opportunities for legal cannabis businesses." Okay, but you are balancing it without having passed a promulgated law, without going through legislative due process, and you are curtailing people's affirmative licensed rights that existed theretofore, before the announcement, apropos again of what law? People were already licensed to sell this stuff without all these rules. What gives you the authority to add them? Without an actual law, I really do want to know the question; that's not rhetorical. I'm not drawing conclusions. I am very curious to know how that's possible without a promulgated law? Quoting further: "Importantly, shops selling cannabis must only source their products from farms certified under the Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) standards by the Department of Thai Traditional Alternative Medicine, he said." Again, what gives them the right to curtail licenses that have already been issued to allow these businesses to operate without some sort of legislative enactment here? Especially where affirmative licenses were already issued. I don't get it. Really, This isn't rhetorical. I'm asking that question sincerely.

So, again this is sort of where things stand at the moment again as I've discussed in other videos. This is all in kind of a legal limbo. Again, with the current political climate in the background of all of this, it remains to be seen exactly how this is going to shake out, but we will certainly keep people updated on this channel as the situation evolves.