Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis as a cash crop here in the Kingdom of Thailand. There has been a lot of discussion on this; this is really getting a lot of momentum I think. Honestly if you want my opinion on it, I think overall and let me state, overall, I think it is a good thing. I think it is a good thing for Thailand's economy; I think it creates a comparative advantage for Thailand's tourism sector as we will get into here in a moment. Now that being said, like I said with gambling and things when they have discussed that, there are upsides and downsides to this. There are pros and cons and they need to be weighed very carefully. Do I think re-criminalization of this is a good idea? Not really, not at all in fact, I think it is a really bad idea. But regulation is fine and I think it's necessary especially in matters pertaining to children getting a hold of this stuff or as has been noted, pregnant mothers, warnings need to be given and folks that are underage or should not be taking this or ingesting this stuff. Yeah that should be dealt with and that should be regulated. Again re-criminalization though, I mean at this point I don't think it would be a good idea from any standpoint. As noted in other videos on this topic, even folks within the Ministry of Justice have said look it kind of is nice that we have resources that were being dedicated to that issue moved over to dealing with really hard drugs which in my opinion is more of a problem for society frankly than Cannabis will probably ever be. To top it off as we have discussed in other videos, out of nowhere $28 billion Baht in market capitalization disappeared in the last few weeks here in Thailand with respect to the industry surrounding cannabis. So at the end of the day, it's bringing in Revenue, it is going to be bringing in tax Dollars. Is re-criminalization the answer? Probably not, in fact I think it's far from it but regulation as we have discussed, not a bad idea. Now that said, how does this interact with tourism? 

I got to think of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand streets-ahead of competitors in the popularity stakes. A lot of information in this article. I'm going to quote an excerpt here but for those who are watching this video, it is probably a good idea to go check out that article, read that in detail. Quoting directly: "Nonetheless, Thailand is now a trailblazer for tourist Asia. Whilst countries like Singapore and Malaysia retain the death penalty for Cannabis trafficking, Thailand's liberal agenda is proving both attractive and cash-savvy. As Anutin Charnvirakul, construction tycoon and Minister of Health, puts it, "We want Thai people to grow cannabis as a cash crop and to promote quality tourism at the same time." Casinos won't be far behind. 

Well we will see about casinos but yeah I mean it's interesting this notion of a cash crop and as I noted before we quoted that in another video the 28 billion Baht that just popped up overnight in market capitalization in this industry, I think that was in the Bangkok Post that they noted that. This is major money and at the end of the day Thailand is coming off some of the worst couple of years it's ever dealt with economically. I mean as we talked about at the beginning of the year, Thailand's Tourism Industry is literally decimated, literally got knocked back to a tenth of its size and that represented 20% of overall GDP here in Thailand. So again, anything to help that within reason obviously, anything that can help that though within reason, is probably something that should be seriously studied. It appears to me that policy makers on this issue did actually study this for a relatively prolonged of time. They came up with a lot of policy decisions; they implemented that policy and now here we are and I think it is hard to disagree with the notion that especially economically, the proof is in the pudding, again 28 billion Baht pops up in market capitalization just in a few weeks, literally over a summer, I mean that has to be looked at for what it is and that is a substantial gain for the Thai Economy.