Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis yet again. It has been a rather hot topic here in Thailand lo these past few months. I think a lot of people, I have talked to a few people in the past few weeks and I think they seem to think that I have come upon this like in the past few months and that's really not the case. I was talking to our producer here while we were getting ready to make this video and I think that we have been working, I think Thailand has been kind of dealing with this whole issue sort of processing it if you will, going back 4 or 5 years now because I remember doing the video about Section 44 power being used on strains of this when they started off doing research. I remember doing that and that is years ago, that's going back years now. So this is something we have really been following kind of from the beginning in terms of sort of the evolution of this and that kind of leads us into this story that got me thinking about making this video today.

This story is from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Activists press for weed Bill passage. There is a lot of information in this video. I strongly urge those who are watching this video, go read that article in detail but primarily, I am going to go through this, I am going to quote a little more than I usually do because I am going to do the analysis as we go on this because this is a pretty densely packed article. Again I urge those who are watching this go read it for yourself. There is more in here than we even we are going to go over but I kind of want to get on and do some fine points and some apparent misconceptions that have come down the last couple of weeks. So again quoting directly from the article: Activists press for weed Bill passage, Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com. Quoting directly: "Activists will gather outside Parliament on Wednesday to press for the passage of the Cannabis control Bill which is currently having its second reading," note that "second reading." It's already gone through one reading and it's on to its second reading presumably starting tomorrow which is Wednesday here in Bangkok. Quoting directly: "Further, their leader Prasitchai Nunual, said they want Parliament to enact the law to prevent the liberalization of cannabis use and were opposed to some MPs threatening to vote against it." Quoting further: "If any MPS attempt to block the passage of the Bill, people will give them a painful lesson (by not voting for them) in the coming election," he said." Quoting further: "Sonthaya Sae Yo, a traditional medical practitioner in Surat Thani 's Koh Phangan district, said he has used Cannabis to treat numerous patients. However he said, he disagreed with the liberalization of Cannabis use and that it was necessary to enact the Bill to control it." Quoting further: "The Bill was already vetted by a House Committee comprising all stakeholders, Mr. Sonthaya said, adding that some had spread false information about minors smoking cannabis."

Let's go back and kind of break this out, kind of bit by bit. First off as we have discussed in other videos on this channel, the economic benefits to the country, just set aside everything else, the economic benefits to the country have been substantial so when I see somebody saying look, and I am not trying to get political here, I am really, really not, and this is a little bit delicate for me because we have been talking about this a long time. I kind of feel like I should continue to do so and it still falls into the bailiwick of what could be Law. We already have had essentially, the enabling act if you will and I don't mean Act capital A-c-t, I mean act as in act like just the action that set all this off has kind of already occurred which is the delisting of Cannabis from the narcotics list which should have happened, but now we are sitting here and we are kind of in this regulatory limbo because no law has been passed and I think this person that is quoted in here, this Prasitchai Nunual who is quoted as saying "look we are going to come down here see that people pass this" and they are noting that this person at least is saying hey this is going to be a problem if you don't do that and I suspect the problems are arising from the fact that there are a lot of economic considerations that are sort of just barely under the surface here that I don't think a lot of people are taking into consideration. Then again Sonthaya Sae Yo, a traditional medical practitioner in Surat Thani's Koh Phangan district said he used Cannabis to treat numerous patients. However he said he disagreed with the liberalization of cannabis use and that it was necessary to enact a Bill to control it. So as we have said, as we have discussed on this channel before, again the path forward here is not re-criminalization. Medicinal Marijuana, Medicinal Cannabis is what the sort of goal was here and that is my understanding what it fundamentally was in the beginning, then dealing with the regulatory structure is what we need to deal with here. We don't need to re-criminalize it, we need to regulate it as this person is pointing out. I don't know, things that have been said, things that have purported to be the case, what the reality is behind them, but I would find it sad to learn that people are out lying about something to try and push their own position, it wouldn't be the first time it has ever happened in history but it would be sad to see. 

Long story short, it is going to be interesting to watch the rest of this. I think getting a Bill on this past and getting some kind of actual regulatory structure in place is far better than the current situation we are in as well as what could be the case if we don't get something passed especially if we have to wait around for elections and things like that. Again not being political, just thinking about this purely from a legal standpoint, it is a better idea to have some laws in place than not.