Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, I am kind of engaging in some Comparative Law; I am doing some videos on Comparative Law. When we talk about this, remember I am an American Attorney; I am not claiming, I have never claimed to be a Thai Lawyer, a Thai Attorney. I am versed in American jurisprudence, the American Common Law tradition. Thailand utilizes the Civil Law tradition and on top of that although it adopted the Civil Law which is something of a European by-product, a by-product of European jurisprudence - and as we discussed in prior videos things like the Three Seals Law actually pre-date the Civil Law here in Thailand and according to Supreme Court opinion in the past, continues to apply under certain circumstances - so Thailand has its own legal tradition and it is unique to Thailand. Remember this is a nation that has never been colonized; it has never had an outside legal tradition foisted upon it so again it's very unique. I find it fascinating when I kind of find out new and interesting things about how the Civil Law System works. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on one of our prior videos regarding Cannabis and I thought of commenting back, and I am going to actually read what I was intending to exactly comment and then I am going to get into some further analysis. So to quote from the comment, quote: "I believe that any product containing over 0.2 THC is prohibited as of right now. Correct?" My comment back on that was going to be "I am not sure" and I am not. Quoting further or what I was going to say further: "Can you cite a promulgated regulation enacted pursuant to a relevant Thai Statute to that effect?" And I asked that question somewhat rhetorically because we don't have a Statute on the books yet regarding Cannabis. 

As we have discussed in other videos, they are currently in the process of considering legislation on Cannabis and the rules associated therewith and the regulations associated therewith, but they have not finalized any law, they haven't promulgated any law on it and it hasn't been published in The Royal Gazette, we haven't seen anything yet on that issue. It is my understanding again take it for what it's worth as an Attorney from the Common Law tradition just sort of viewing it as an outsider, it is my understanding that pursuant to the Doctrine of Codification which is one of the cornerstones of Civil Law, if you don't have a Statute in effect it can't be made illegal. The Doctrine of Codification stipulates, in order to make something illegal you have to codify it, you have to put it in the code. That means you have to promulgate legislation on it. Failure to do that means that it is, some could argue it is de facto legal. Well no, yeah I guess that's true but that is putting a modifier on something that quite honestly shouldn't be modified. It simply is legal because it hasn't been made illegal. And again, I am not really sure exactly what the regulation at present is on the THC content, if any. I think it is more or less guidelines at the moment rather than again actual regulation which is promulgated as an extension of a relevant Statute, basically pursuant to a relevant Statute.

So again, this is a different, I am talking about this in the context of Cannabis and I am not actually saying that commenter was wrong; it was a good point to bring up but I wanted to use this as an exercise in showing how comparing the legal principles which undergird these different systems, sets of laws, can have a major impact on the overall analysis. It can change your perspective if you will on how Legal Systems work.