Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis, Cannabis Law and Policy yet again here on this channel. This has become something of a hot topic as there's all this, in some cases detritus floating around the ether of the internet talking about re-criminalization, re-classification of Cannabis as a narcotic. All kinds of frankly nonsense in my opinion and here we are, we are past the two-year anniversary of Cannabis being legalized here in Thailand and things are pretty okay quite honestly. But what's interesting is, this is going to be a bit of an exercise in Comparative Law as you can see from the thumbnail and I am going to come back to sort of the situation in Thailand. But I was reading a recent article from the City, that's the city.nyc, the article is titled: Video of the NYPD Cannabis Raid and Arrest Raises Questions about Adams' New Enforcement Offensive. Cop seized less than a pound of weed, hauled a shopkeeper away in cuffs and ignited lawyers' due process concerns. Yeah I'd say so. We're going to go ahead and throw up the clip; I found this on Twitter initially and then I found the article. So we're going to go ahead and throw up the clip here so folks can go ahead and see that.

(CCTV Clip)

All right, now you've seen the clip, I want to read a few excerpts here from this article: Quoting directly: "As a new mayoral task force conducts sweeps of hundreds of shops suspected of selling ‘illegal’ weed," which you know getting into this whole what's legal Cannabis and illegal and look, these are really gray areas, as anybody who knows anything about this product knows. I mean again if you start getting into delineating THC content and the slight variations - did it go over 0.2% or whatever - I mean it leaves open too much room for abuse quite honestly, as evidenced from this video. Quoting further: "A video of a raid on a Staten Island store obtained by THE CITY captures how enlisting police to conduct regulatory inspections..," and that is the key thing here. If you get into this article and I urge those who are watching this video, read that in detail for yourself. Within their own statute in New York, there is a right to refuse. Now it has a fine component, but these police officers just, I believe they were sheriffs, deputies or something they just sort of ignored all of that, ignored due process and acted quite honestly, in my opinion, inappropriately. Quoting further: "..can lead to criminal charges, igniting concerns about potential due process violations." Well yeah. And that's the whole thing that has been my issue over here in Thailand is it is all just this colour of law. Again as we discussed, Anutin was operating - my understanding - under Emergency Powers which were delegated under the authority of the Communicable Disease Act which was being invoked for the so-called COVID Emergency, pandemic, whatever you want to call that, but he did have invoked Emergency Powers, he was the Minister of Public Health and as such, he took it upon himself to delist this is a narcotic and effectively legalizing it here in the Kingdom. Have dogs and cats started living together? Is there mass hysteria now that Cannabis is legal? No, not really. In fact if anything, I think it has invigorated the tourism sector, it has revitalized or vitalized if you will, the commercial real estate sector here in Thailand which I would probably argue is one of the only commercial real estate sectors around the world that isn't having serious systemic problems right now. And meanwhile there is this push to re-criminalize, to relist this as a narcotic, coming up with all sorts of delineations between medicinal and recreational use and the question has to be posed “Is all of this just being done as some kind of charade to allow for this kind of colour of law abuse?” I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that question. Quoting further: "The 90-second clip taken from a store surveillance camera on May 18th shows seven uniformed law enforcement officers, most of them in NYPD gear, cursing, jumping over the store counter and charging at the shopkeeper after he asked them for a Court Order before opening the door to the back of the store." Yeah, just exercising rights and saying hey you need to go through due process. Do you have a warrant? Do you have a Court Order for this? Let me get into it further. Quoting further: "Instead, the man was cuffed - before any unlicensed cannabis products were found (they cuffed him) - and taken to a local Precinct where he was charged with obstruction of justice, records show." Obstruction of justice. Like a charge of impeding a police officer and trying to save someone or in trying to thwart a crime, but this guy, just all this guy said was "hey have you got a warrant? Have you got a court order? Quoting further here: "In April, Hochul," (that is Governor Kathy Hochul of New York) "expanded the state's enforcement powers again, this time authorizing local jurisdictions to conduct regulatory inspections,.." Now it looks to me like she just sort of took this upon herself, much the same way certain people over here are talking about "oh we can just reclassify Cannabis as a narcotic on a whim. But we see the negative ramifications of that because when you don't go through due legislative process, it gets into this colour of law stuff and that's not where you want to be. Beyond even that, why? Just out of the desire to be a nanny minder? In any event, quoting further: "..adding more manpower behind the state agencies. It also made it easier to padlock stores after one inspection, rather than seeking a Court Order." Doesn't sound like a lot of due process to me. Again it's this desire by bureaucrats to just unilaterally act without again taking into consideration due process which again, I'm not going to say that Thailand is some kind of anomaly for this. We're seeing this in the United States; this is New York. Why is it that basic civics is so hard now? Pass a law and then have law enforcement enforce it. Stop with this colour of law nonsense. Quoting further: "Joseph Bondy, a Cannabis lawyer who has represented some unlicensed shops in administrative hearings..," (interesting. I will get to that in a moment) "..said the Staten island arrest is part of a larger pattern unfolding in these inspections. Lawyers like Bondy and Zissou argue that the new legislation does not erase the provision in the 2021 law that allows merchants to refuse an inspection and does not permit searches and seizures without a warrant." Yeah, you can't supersede the 4th Amendment. Then on top of that, there is a specific provision in the Statute that allows for the shop owners to refuse this. Quoting further: "Many of these merchants are having their rights violated," said Bondy, who also serves as Vice Chair of the National Organization for the reform of marijuana laws, an advocacy group." That's NORML. If I remember correctly, NORML had a chapter at my law school, Washburn University. I joined it and I believe it was the only Chapter in a law school at the time that I joined it. So I've always thought that quite honestly marijuana, cannabis laws around the world have been pretty silly and nonsensical. In any event, quoting further: "Despite legislation expanding the state's enforcement ability, quote "it doesn't supersede the Constitution and it certainly doesn't authorize someone to break into a closed store for the purpose of conducting the inspection that would trigger the seizure." See that's the point. They're not supposed to be able to just come barging in. If there's some exigent need or if it comes to their attention in good faith then fine, but they are just kicking down doors now "oh no, no, we ended up," yet that's the thing. All of this ends up being very 'ends justify the means' kind of thinking. Very circular logic. "Well we found something so therefore what we did was okay." That's nonsense, that is not the basis for rule of law. Quoting further: "In the video of the Staten Island raid, the shopkeeper denies having any Cannabis for sale when asked whether the store carries Stiizy products a well-known California brand. ”These days we just don't want problems, you know?" the clerk said. Seconds later, the group of officers entered the store and asked to be let into the back of the shop. The clerk asked several times to see a Court Order. Officers warned he was obstructing justice, then jumped the counter and handcuffed him. 

"You'll go to jail for that," an officer told him, according to the surveillance footage. 

"Don't be effing stupid," (so expletive deleted there) a second officer said. 

"I did nothing wrong," the shopkeeper replied."

Quoting further: "Police later found less than a pound of Cannabis products in the back of the store and padlocked the shop." 

By the way there's like a half dozen guys here, if you look in that video. I mean really? That kind of manpower? Seriously? The Governor's Office declined to answer specific questions about the arrest of the shopkeeper." Well I bet they did, because there's nothing to really answer there, is there? They operated illegally; they're not in the right on this. At best it's colour of law, at best. Quoting further: "Governor Hochul fought for major legislation to shut down illicit Cannabis shops..." Yeah you know, why? Why don't you just let everybody get their license, comport and pay their taxes? Why spend all this time and energy going through this nonsense? I mean what's the point of this? How much money and man hours were spent in sending these guys down there on something that doesn't look to me to be legal? And then what do you get? What were the benefits that accrued as a result of these costs being expended? "..that gives localities the enforcement tools they need while putting important guardrails in place to protect the rights of New Yorkers." Yeah, that New Yorker's rights looked real protected. Them guardrails are just holding up great. Come on, come on. "..a spokesperson for the Governor, Justin Henry, said in a statement. The Office of Cannabis Management deferred to the statement from Hochul's Office." So all the bureaucrats are just pointing at each other and then the one statement you get is "well important guardrails to protect the rights of New Yorkers!" Yeah, uh huh! Okay.  Quoting further: "The store clerk is scheduled to appear in Criminal Court on Staten Island next Friday." So this guy has got to go still deal with it even though on its face, it doesn't look proper. That's my point in all of it. Is this what we want Thailand? This kind of nonsense. I thought this was the reason for the changes in the first place and it doesn't look like to me people are running around with their hair on fire, wanting to change it back. 

Look, at the end of the day, yes there are ups and downs, there are pros and cons to this product. Yeah there should be restrictions in place. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'd be perfectly happy with criminal penalties for anybody that sells this stuff to children, folks under the age of 20, sure, fine. But getting into all of this 'medicinal' use versus 'recreational' use and having all this nanny-minder stuff, just stop, just stop it. Look tax it, that's fine. Tax authorities I wouldn't have any problems with this. If somebody was skimming and not paying their taxes, fair enough. That's a different matter, but just harassing for the sake of harassment because of the product, that just seems silly to me. In any event, going further and more on point for what's going on here in Thailand. I thought further when I was making this video, after reading this article, I thought of quoting this. The article is from the Pattaya News, that is thepattayanews.com, the article is titled:  Pro Cannabis Activists Mark Two Years of legalization, Begin Sit-in at Thai Government House Opposing Recriminalization. Yeah, thanks for using the correct terminology there Pattaya News. Legalization is the right word. Not decriminalization, none of this nonsense. It was legalized. That is what's going on here. It is a legal product; it is being sold under controlled herb licenses by those with a lawful certification to sell this stuff, with lawful authority to sell it. Quoting directly: "On June 9th, 2024, Mr. Prasitchai Nunual, the Secretary-general of the Network for Shaping the Future of Thai Cannabis, and other cannabis advocacy groups of more than 300 individuals called for a protest on June 9 at 1PM in front of the UN Office, preparing for a march to the Government House. Quoting further: "They aim to demand that the Government use scientific processes to determine the future of Cannabis regulation and to prevent its re-classification as a narcotic illegal drug." Well I would say both of those things are valid points, but also pass a law. Stop doing this because you just say so. Put it through Parliament. If you can't get it passed, leave it as it is. This isn't some scourge; this isn't having, we've had all these shrinks basically come out and say "oh it's causing all these problems" after they said it was killing people which it wasn't, and all of this nonsensical hyperbole. Then they wheel out the "expert" doctors that we all got real used to their "expertise" during COVID, wheeled them out to say "oh my God the sky is falling, everyone's having a nervous breakdown because cannabis exists and we're spending 20 billion Baht now per year on psychiatric treatment." Which I don't even know where they came up with that number. 20 billion Baht is like 10 times the amount of resources that are expended on foreigners dying in Thailand, I mean orders of magnitude. I just can't imagine that's a rational number and let's remember, back at the beginning of COVID there was all kinds of chicanery going on with the numbers of deaths and those infected, and all the rates and everything. And now we look back on it, we know the stats, we know what's going on. It really was not the serious problem that they claimed. I often wonder if we're not dealing with something similar in this whole "oh my God the sky is falling, Cannabis is legal!" It's just silliness frankly. Quoting further, and I thought this was very interesting: "The stage for a major protest scheduled for June 9th, 2024, marks the second anniversary of Cannabis legalization in Thailand. The demonstrators marched to the United Nations Office on Ratchadamnoen Avenue, announcing their intent to file a lawsuit with the Administrative Court if the Government reclassifies Cannabis as an illegal drug." And that is a very valid point to bring up here. These folks are seemingly operating under licenses issued by the Government. To have this so-called U-turn unilaterally imposed upon them without legislative due process, I have got to imagine that creates a cause of action in the Thai Courts. Again, I'm not a Thai Attorney, I'm a lay person when it comes to those issues, but I have to imagine there is some kind of cause of action. I've actually talked to colleagues here in the office and colleagues of mine outside of the office that are aware of the Cannabis issues, that are Thai legal professionals and Attorneys and they've said "yeah that looks like an Administrative Court issue there", as well. I've often wondered if the whole lack of Emergency Power issue might not be an issue for the Constitutional Court but again I remain a layman when it comes such matters, so I don't know what the answer is to that. But I find it really interesting that this Cannabis Network, let me read that again, "Shaping the Future of Cannabis, the Network for Shaping of Future of Cannabis", it looks to me like they are proactive and it looks to me like they have got a pretty good head on their shoulders, good game plan, if they decide to just unilaterally, in my opinion it's a huge mistake; I think it looks silly in the eyes of the world; I think it looks silly in terms of just basic notions of rule of law; I think it looks arbitrary and capricious, and again for what benefit? What's this major societal benefit that we are aiming for other than could it be profit margins of Big Alcohol and Big Pharma Companies which might be being impacted by the change in the posture of Cannabis here in Thailand, I should say the legal posture of Cannabis here in Thailand? Could they perhaps have a vested interest in changes to these policies? I don't know but it's a very good question and one hopefully we will see; well I don't know if I necessarily want this answered. What I would like is things to just continue as they are because quite honestly, I don't see where the fire is at so to speak. I don't see where the big problem is. Now I do get it from a tax standpoint. If we see legislation come about where they say "Hey we're taxing at this amount. You have got to comport with these tax filing rules and things of that nature," well that's a different matter. But to try to re-classify this as a narcotic, to my mind it's not only nonsensical, I think it would be harmful to the country.