Transcript of the above video: 

When I say here, I am actually in transit at the moment. I had an urgent family matter to deal with abroad, outside of Thailand, and I had an opportunity to also spend some time with family over the American independence holidays, and that has been interesting. But long story short, I am now in transit back to Thailand but having been outside the Kingdom for a little bit of time here, it has given me a little bit of perspective to sort of be able to see or to get a better perspective as to what I see going on in Thailand and I find it concerning. Frankly I haven't found things to be this concerning since the darkest hours of the so-called COVID crisis and we all know how bad that was, and here we are again in my opinion a situation where I am starting to really question whether or not certain folks in and around the "Government" and I'll get into why I am saying that quote/unquote, have the best interest of the nation of Thailand at heart.

Let's go ahead and get into why did I put the quotes around the word "government". To be clear for those who don't understand, and I don't like to get overly political on this channel. We like to discuss things from a legal standpoint, so that folks, especially foreigners can have some better insight into what is going on here in Thailand. But there are some political ramifications to this and look at the day promulgated law and changes to policy and changes to laws do come about through oftentimes the political process but the reason for the quotation marks around the word “government” is to be clear in a lot of these issues that we're going to be discussing in the rest of this video and strap in, it is going to be a longer one, the question arises as to whether this is even ‘the government’ that is making all of these moves if you will, that is proposing all of these changes to the laws, changes to laws regarding as we'll get into cannabis as well as certain economic considerations that are stemming from the so-called digital wallet. And again so what am I talking about when we put government in quotes? Well currently Thailand is operating under a coalition Government. There is a legitimate, there is a constitutionally legitimate government which has been formed in Thailand; it currently exists in the Parliament. Parliament is open, the speaker has opened it, procedurally, Thailand is operating under a legitimate Parliament here in the Kingdom. That said, the coalition itself I would say lacks what we would say in the American vernacular much akin to for example when a President will win an Electoral College win much like the way President Bush, George W Bush won the Electoral College in 2000 as well as how Donald Trump won the Electoral College in 2016. There may be an Electoral College win which under the American Constitutional system can make for a legitimate President, it is difficult for that President to then turn around and claim that they have anything akin to a major mandate especially when it comes to things like domestic legislation. While it is not an apples to apples comparison when looking at the current situation of the government in Thailand, I think it is fair to state that while Thailand does have a legitimate Parliament, a legitimate constitutionally enshrined Parliamentary Government presently, I think it is pretty hard to say that there was any major mandate for major legislative changes and there is a faction of the current coalition, the faction that currently has put for the current Prime Minister in Thailand, that faction is operating as if they have some major sweeping broad mandate to make massive changes to the things that had occurred prior to them coming into power and I don't think most people outside of Thailand or who just have a passing understanding of the Thai system fully comprehend just how big a deal that is, that in fact No, that the fraction of the coalition which is pushing all of these major things that I really question whether or not these things are in the best interest of the nation over all, I question whether they really have a mandate to begin with to make these changes because at the end of the day they didn't win a sweeping majority, they didn't even win the faction that is currently running the Prime Ministership and many of the ministries in Thailand including the Public Health Ministry. That faction did not win some major mandate electorally; they were able to form a coalition and thereby form a Government which is legitimate, no one questions that, but again does it have a mandate to make these major changes that they are proposing which will have a tremendous impact overall on Thailand. 

Let's just jump into this. What are we talking about here? Well specifically, I first thought about making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Cannabis set to return to illegal drugs list after vote. First off, yet again the media has not fully articulated what is actually going on here.  Many people think that this vote was the conclusion and it is not and I will get into that here in a moment. That said, quoting directly: "A majority vote was finally reached to put Cannabis and Hemp back on the narcotics list. However, quoting further: "The Committee would submit its report to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board for consideration next week." So to be clear, notwithstanding how the media is currently reporting on this, this not a done deal. Basically an advisory opinion of the committee has been reached, the majority of folks sitting on the committee came to a conclusion regarding what they would advise the Board to ultimately do okay? So quoting further: “If the Office of the Narcotic Control Board agrees with our conclusion, the next step will for the Food and Drug Administration to,” and then it goes on. But again the cogent point I am trying to make here is if the Office of the Narcotic Control Board agrees with that conclusion, that's the key takeaway there, okay?

Meanwhile moving over to another article again Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Health Minister still plans to recriminalize Cannabis, says most agree. Again, and I have talked about this in other videos that we have made. There has been all of this talk about certain polling and I find a lot of this to be spurious, that many people, there's an overwhelming majority of people that wants to re-illegalize this and go back to the Dark ages effectively of the so-called War on Drugs where we were putting people into prison for literally offences related to Cannabis okay, and I don't think anybody agrees that that is a great idea as evidenced by the fact that it was changed in the first place. That said, quoting directly: “Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul was Health Minister in 2022 and is now Interior Minister and a Deputy Prime Minister and chairs the Narcotics Control Board.” I think that's noteworthy because he was the person that was the major driver behind this change in policy regarding Cannabis in the first place and now he will be ultimately chairing the Board which will make a final determination on this overall issue next week. Again the media is reporting on this is if it is already a foregone conclusion, as of it is already a done deal and as you can see, it is far from it, if anything. That said, quoting from another article in the Bangkok Post, the article, again tip of the hat to Bangkok Post by the way, staying on top of this very well. That said, I sometimes see these headlines again, that I find to be a little bit disingenuous as far as reporting as if this is already done and not fully articulating that there are further procedural steps that have to be undertaken in order for this reversal to be fully enacted. And even if they do come to a final conclusion, there are still more procedural steps that would have to occur; this is this is a long way off as evidenced. Again article is titled: Pro Cannabis groups to rally at Government House, Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com and quoting directly, and they are quoting Prasitchai Nunual, Secretary General of the Writing Thai Cannabis Future and this person notes: "The Committee's decision is not based on the public's interest and could be an administrative offense. He threatened to file criminal and civil lawsuits against the Public Health Minister, Somsak Thepsuthin and the Committee and mount a public campaign against them." Now this is noteworthy I think because even if this committee and I find it, we have discussed this at length, first they said oh we need to go ahead and pass something through Parliament and they spent two years messing with that and then when apparently this faction that doesn't really want Cannabis to be the way that it currently is or in its current form and they really didn't get their way then they turned around and just said “well we can do it all through the Committees; we can just do this by regulation; we can effectively with the stroke of a pen”, without really having the effectively the input of Parliament per se but just us as bureaucrats we can just with the stroke of a pen, change the nature of Cannabis in terms of its legal posture in Thailand; basically overnight we can just call it a narcotic. Well the problem with that as pointed out, and as we discussed in other videos, I personally have wondered and I haven’t ever seen this issue discussed, first of all, the delisting of Cannabis as a narcotic occurred under Emergency Powers when the Communicable Diseases Act had been enacted for Emergency purposes in response to the so-called Covid pandemic, and the Minister of Public Health had certain extraordinary powers by dint of that Emergency Decree. This doesn’t exist here and I have asked the question, again as a lay Thai person, isn’t that an issue for the Constitutional Court whether or not they can just unilaterally say that a plant is overnight a narcotic? Again, it was delisted under Emergency Powers at the time that the Emergency Decree was in effect. Now that it is not, can they just turn around and do that? Meanwhile, as brought up by Mr. Nunual, the issue of being an administrative offense is also a very cogent point as well because I think as we'll see, even if they ultimately are able to do this through basically bureaucratic fiat and just say “because we say so, this is now a narcotic”, people were issued licenses under the previous system so to just come in over the top of them without an enacted law by Parliament while there are valid licenses still in place, how can that be legal? And as noted, there's probably going to be a number of lawsuits as a result of this overall situation. And in other articles, Mr. Anutin himself point out about that yeah look, what do you do about the people that were all released from jail as a result of the change in policy and law some two years ago? There is going to be a lot of explaining to do on the part of the Narcotics Control Board and then on top of that, they are putting out of business some 7,700 to 8,000 small businesses that to be clear already have legally promulgated licenses to sell this product and then unilaterally one Ministry like one small group of Ministry bureaucrats, some half a dozen people or whatever it is that have voted in this Advisory Committee to say "oh this is now a narcotic again!” They just get to unilaterally, they just get do that? Notwithstanding the fact that people detrimentally relied on getting their own licenses to be able to sell these things and run their own small businesses?  Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. On top of that, I think even if they say “we have now changed the rules, we have changed the laws, we have made this a narcotic”, I think this is going to get caught up in the Thai Court System. So what I am saying is don't view this as a foregone conclusion at this stage of the game because there are many, many things, many other tumblers have to have to fall together for this to ultimately revert back to the way it was prior to, what was it, June 2022. So that is something to keep in mind. 

Meanwhile, again this video is not entirely about the issue of Cannabis. What's concerning to me is what I am seeing is more and more again going back to for example this same faction in the coalition was the one that wanted to go ahead and put Chinese Police on Thai streets. I did a video, a pretty passionate one at the time discussing that issue and I have noticed more and more, there seems to be this push for more Chinese tourists. Meanwhile, it seems like there is a deliberate ignorance to the influx of many Indian tourists that we have seen over the past couple of years as well as other nationalities. And again, going back to that issue of Chinese Police, was that in the best interest of Thailand, was that best thing for the nation? I don't think so. Meanwhile on top of that, from Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Digital Wallet scheme signs up vendors. Quoting directly: "Vendors can use the digital "money", (and I put "money" in quotes) "to purchase food, beverages and consumer goods. Products that cannot be purchased using the digital wallet include," and see, this is what we have gotten to. This so-called digital wallet which since I have been outside of Thailand the past few whatever week or so, 10 days, I have noticed that it has just sort of been glossed over how they even got the funding for this. Bear in mind as we discussed in prior videos, we are talking about two orders of magnitude more liquidity than the current Thai Banking system even has and Thailand is supposed to go into a great deal of debt for this system. Then meanwhile, I have seen this constant push of the notion that Thailand needs stimulus, Keynesian stimulus, i.e. Government intervention into the economy to inject all this money. First of all my question is, where was all of this concern during the so-called pandemic when all of these businesses were just completely shut down and no one, and that is anyone from the opposition, whatever, seemed particularly to care about those businesses at that time. Now they are saying we need this stimulus notwithstanding the fact as we have discussed in other videos, in the first quarter of 2024 we saw a huge boom economically, including a massive increase in consumer spending. What I find really interesting is this constant refrain of "oh we need stimulus" is coming from the same people that want to re-criminalize a product that within about six weeks of being legalized, represented a 1 billion dollar market cap industry just within the first six weeks of it existing within the Thai economy. As we discussed in other videos, even Time Magazine pointed out that Thailand was on a trajectory of seeing the Cannabis industry be worth as much as US$9 billion on an ongoing basis and again these same people that are saying we need stimulus are also saying "oh we need to get rid of Cannabis" which is something that's entirely new to the economy, operates as a cash crop agriculturally, operates as basically an engine of small business in terms of small retail businesses, also operates as an engine of increasing tourism as many tourists want to come to Thailand to partake of this product, also increases consumer spending, likely as a result of those tourists coming to Thailand and spending their money imbibing on or indulging in said product. Meanwhile, it also has had a massive positive impact on the commercial real estate sector in Thailand which everybody else around the world's commercial real estate sector is plummeting for a variety of different reasons, it is plummeting. Meanwhile Thailand’s has held strong. Well it has held strong because one reason is there is a great deal of demand for retail commercial real estate as a result of having this product legal on the market. Meanwhile, this call for stimulus is attached directly to the notion of this “digital wallet” scheme which is not real money, as I have discussed in other videos. They can control where it is spent, they can control how it is spent. They can even place a time limit on when and where it can be used, so quoting again, again Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, Digital Wallet scheme signs up vendors. "Recipients can use the digital "money" to purchase food, beverages and consumer goods. Products that cannot be purchased using the digital wallet include lottery tickets, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cannabis related products, or items derived from these substances." Something to think about here is the funding for this stimulus will create the infrastructure for this cashless economic scheme and if you can't see the writing on the wall, they are going to be able to control what you buy. And if this is put in place, it's going to result in down the road, they are going to be able to not only surveil whatever you buy, but tell you that you can't buy it. If you are trying to buy something with your "digital money" that they don't like, they just won't let you do it. Quoting further: "In addition, the handout cannot be used to buy gift cards, cash cards, gold, diamonds, pearls or to pay off debts, tuition fees or utility bills including water, electricity or telephone charges or to buy fuel or natural gas." Well those are things of great use to people in a real sense. What is this digital money supposed to be able to buy? You are going to be able to go in what, buy consumer candy and things like this from a 7-Eleven? Or again, gold, you can't use it to pay off debts, tuition fees, utility bills. These are the things people need help with. They don't need help buying chicken and Chiclets from a gas station somewhere, they need help with actual real world goods and services that real money can buy. Not some digital wallet, fake money. And I am more passionate about this having been abroad from Thailand for a little while now and I have gained a great deal of extra perspective on this watching the country for example of my birth and other countries around the world that have gone greatly cashless and I am watching the deflationary effect that it is having on the overall economy. It is literally desiccating the economy; the effect is people buy less things because they have less options of things to buy. That is bad; you want a vibrant economy. Variety is the spice of life as they say. Well variety is the spice and the engine of an economy.

My point being with this video and the reason i decided to make it and as you can see we are still having some technical difficulties in this one - it doesn't look like my usual videos - but I am concerned about this because I am wondering does this faction that is proposing all of these things, that wants to roll back something that to my mind has had a benefit on Thailand. Could reasonable people disagree on regulation of the product of cannabis? Sure. But the notion of rolling it back to the War on Drugs era, where people were going to prison for Cannabis, that is what we want to do? Then meanwhile, we want to roll out a cashless system in Thailand that the nation will ultimately have to pay for via taxes to pay back the debt that's being basically imposed on the country as a result of this so called program that the nation will have to go into paying this all back ultimately for a system that will surveil them and curtail their economic liberties in the future? Is that in the best interest of anyone? Not from where I am sitting. So I am hoping at the end of day, cooler heads prevail on all of this stuff and people take a deep breath and again I am going to presume everybody is acting in good faith ultimately. That the question posed is No, at the end of the day I think everybody is trying to have the best interest of the nation at heart but it's hard for me to agree with that and to believe that, when I have seen again some of the folks from this faction going off to the World Economic Forum which this is the organization that says "people around the world should own nothing, and be happy!" I mean this sounds like the old notions of internationalism in the Bolshevik tradition. Again, I don't wish to get hyperbolic but it's concerning because I am watching the way the West has gone and the West has not gone in a good direction. Thailand has the opportunity to basically chart her own course in these matters now moving forward as the world is changing. And I think it would be nice to see members of Parliament, members of Thailand's Government do things that are in the best interest of the rank and file people of Thailand rather than ‘high in the sky’ notions of a bunch of oligarchs sitting around in Europe who all they seem to want to do is tell people what to do and tax people into oblivion and basically live off of their hard work, labour and not give them the benefits of that hard work and labour. Then at the same time, they also want to curtail an initiative that has had a tremendous amount of benefit not just for big business somewhere, again I question why isn’t this dialectic of recreational use and medicinal use being applied in the context of alcohol for example? Why is it not being applied in the context of pharmaceutical products to the same extent that it seems to be being applied to the Cannabis issue? Again this Cannabis thing was something that had a great benefit to many little Thais for lack of a better term, the little people, the rank and file Thai people. Then meanwhile this digital wallet to my mind looks like something that would be, it looks like it's a benefit to the little guy if you will, but at the end of the day, when you really break it down and understand it, this will have a tremendously detrimental impact on again rank and file Thai folks, folks in the economy in the longer term. So again I am hoping cooler heads will prevail, reasonable people will come to more reasonable conclusions rather than these notions that to my mind are only going to operate to the detriment of the vast majority of Thais moving forward.