Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis in Thailand. A lot of news lately. There have been Decrees that have come from the Royal Thai Gazette that have discussed new rules coming down with regard to Cannabis here in Thailand. It's been kind of touted as, "oh it's all being restricted and blah, blah, blah", not so much. Also, it's my understanding, now that we have a sitting Parliament and the way that the Constitution works - Jatuporn actually talked about this in the context of condos going back a couple years, 18 months, a couple of years ago when he was talking about Cabinet Resolutions essentially - could be utilized during a sitting Parliament to the effect of like the way Executive Orders or Administrative Rules can be promulgated from the Executive, for example in the context of the United States. It's not quite an apples to apples comparison but effectively, we have a sitting Parliament now, and then, under this Constitution, which there are those who could argue, and I don't know where I stand exactly on this as a Thai or otherwise, that this mechanism to be able to do these like Cabinet Resolutions rather than having to pass full Bills through Parliament, I can see the argument that maybe that's not right in all situations especially with regard to Cannabis, because, as I've discussed in other videos, when it came off the Narcotics List through Anutin using then Minister of Public Health, Anutin Charnvirakul, now Interior Minister and Prime Minister, when he did it, it was under the Emergency Decree so he had the ability to just say, "well I'm using my Emergency Powers, boom, this isn't a narcotic anymore". But then the Emergency Decree ended, so that led to my mind Cannabis as like tulips or something. It's just a plant that has not had any laws made about it. So as I discussed in videos at the time, to my mind, the Doctrine of Codification demands that an actual promulgated Parliamentary Act occur in order to regulate this any differently than it was regulated at the moment that he pulled it off the narcotics list during the Emergency Decree period. That's the way I see it.

Now that said, reasonable people can disagree and things. That said, also again, this is promulgated through the Royal Gazette. This has happened in a sitting Parliament, and it's come from a sitting Cabinet, so again the colour of law sort of balancing out things here. At the end of the day, for the lay person, or the person who is trying to run a business in the Cannabis space, at the end of the day yes, there have been regulatory changes. I'm also seeing now clients and folks coming to us talking about, yeah, they have been spot checked; they've been inspected. They've actually been issued citations and told to shut down for a period of time because they were in violation of some sort of aspect of these new regulatory parameters. Again, how will that end up playing out sort of remains to be seen. But that said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article, actually it was not an article, it was a posting on X by Pure Guava, PureGuava10300 and I have seen a lot of stuff in the other press and I keep kind of coming back to Pure Guava on X because this person does put up pertinent things to Thailand and I kind of like to help the little guy sometimes. I do plenty of citations from Bangkok Post, the Nation, Pattaya Mail and other things - and I will continue to do that - but where possible, if I can just consolidate it to somebody who is sort of an independent operator on X I'm going to try to do that. 

Quoting directly under the title: Thailand's second attempt to shut down "free cannabis" policies has stalled. “Officials confirm Cannabis will remain classified as a controlled herbal substance while pushing to fast track a new Cannabis Act. The proposed law gives the country's roughly 12,000 Cannabis shops three years to transition into license medical facilities." 

To put a finer point on it than Pure Guava did, and tip of the hat to them, but the way I look at it, this is kind of very, in my mind very Anutin. It's very much sort of a situation where kind of keeping everybody happy. The folks that already have their licenses can continue to operate largely under the terms they've been operating under. That said, they're rolling out this new regulatory oversight, and they are also trying to, it looks to me like, actually pass a Cannabis Act which would be nice. I mean frankly I would just like to see an Act. But in the interim, they're coming down with some new regulatory oversight but they are saying look you can continue to operate, and I think in the background the presumption seems to be, or maybe I should say the implied presumption seems to be that look, we're going to end up having a new Act, things are going to change, but we're not going to just leave people out in the cold that detrimentally relied on getting licenses and things under the prior regime. So as Pure Guava points out, it's also important and the reason for the title is that Cannabis will remain classified as a controlled herbal substance. That is key. It’s not being considered a narcotic; it's a controlled herbal substance. Now the regulation of that controlled herbal substance, they are heightening scrutiny, they're tightening down on certain aspects of enforcement, and we're seeing that, but this is also happening over a background of the possibility of an Act passing through Parliament, and also the possibility that things may change in these three years. 

This whole thing has evolved back and forth in a million different ways. I think it's wise of this Government to allow operators who have been operating to continue to operate and possibly have to evolve their businesses so as to be in compliance with the next regime if you will. But again, remains to be seen especially without an Act, but it looks like there is momentum behind the idea of a unified Cannabis Act being passed through Parliament. It remains to be seen how all this plays out, and we will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.