Transcript of the above video: 

I am going to preface this video by stating I have put a link in the description below to a clip involving Dr. Jordan Peterson where he is talking about the Common Law System. Now to be clear, I'm not endorsing that entire clip. I'm simply bringing it up because where I got the term Bottom-up Law, I got that from that clip from Dr. Peterson who is very insightful and he seems to be something lack of a better term, I guess, I don't know if you could be an Anglophile when you are an Anglo but he does seem to be someone who is very concerned about the state of the civilization of the English-speaking peoples if you will, as well as the ongoing maintenance of sort of the Common Law jurisprudence tradition and I can understand that. As someone who comes from the Common Law tradition, I can understand that. That said, I bring it up in the context of this issue involving Cannabis and let's get started here. 

I thought of making this video initially after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Cannabis advocates vow long rally against relisting. Yeah I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail. The thrust of this video is going to go a different direction but as you can see in there, Cannabis activists are very serious. As we have discussed in other videos, they're talking about bringing this into the Courts. I think we could see the Administrative Courts massively clogged up as a result of lawmakers not making Law correctly if you will, of not undertaking due legislative process and that could lead to significant problems or negative consequences down the road. That said, going back again, quoting: "Cannabis advocates vow long rally against relisting. ”Meanwhile Mr. Somsak," and I believe they are talking about Mr. Somsak Thepsuthin (correction), that is the current Public Health Minister, quoting again: "Meanwhile Mr. Somsak said at least 2 Ministerial Regulations would need to be issued to specify which parts of the Cannabis plant are considered narcotics." Well first of all let's talk about that for a minute. Again, Cannabis was delisted under Emergency Power by then Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul. There is no Emergency, there is no Public Health Emergency invoked under the Communicable Diseases Act so I find it spurious, the notion that the Minister of Public Health can just unilaterally start through Ministerial Regulations can just say 'flowers are narcotics' because that is what is occurring here. That is what is being proposed is the notion that the Ministry can just unilaterally say 'hey what's considered a flower today, which is exactly what the current situation, that's the current state of play. Yes Cannabis is considered a controlled herb; yes it cannot be sold anyone under 20 or to pregnant women, but it is considered an herb, a flower, an agricultural product, not a narcotic okay. So this notion that it can just be unilaterally declared a narcotic by the Ministry of Public Health without an Emergency Decree, I don't see where they get the authority to do that. Moreover, it violates the basic notions of the Civil Law which again, I come from the Common Law tradition, I'm not a Thai Attorney but I come at this from a Comparative Law standpoint and it appears to me that the Doctrine of Codification, the basis of the Civil Law, the notion that a legislative body, not just somebody who's in the Government, but a legislative body has to promulgate, has to enact legislation to make something illegal. That is my understanding to be the basis of the Civil Law and it's the component of the Civil Law that makes the Civil Law at least somewhat similar to the Common Law insofar as Dr. Peterson brings up, this notion of Bottom-up Law that the people whom the Laws will be applied to have a hand in making those laws, and the mechanism to have a hand in making those laws is the Parliament. It's not the unilateral decision of the Minister of Public Health. And again we have discussed, well why was Anutin able to do it? Well there was a promulgated Act called the Communicable Diseases Act, and under that Act pursuant to the provisions, an Emergency Decree was invoked. It gave the Minister of Public Health certain unilateral powers under those circumstances. Those unilateral powers to the best of my understanding, were exercised in order to delist Cannabis as a narcotic thereby making it just like any other agricultural product, it has no codified law illegalizing it. Just like a bouquet of roses has no codified law illegalizing that, okay? And yes, to delist it required the use of Emergency Powers to pull it off the narcotics list. But now that there is no Emergency Decree, it seems to me as though the standard mechanism i.e. codification is required i.e. a Parliamentary Act is required, not just the whims of some Public Health Minister saying "Oh I'm just going to say that a flower is a narcotic because I say so!" Quoting further: "Two Ministerial Regulations would need to be issued to specify which parts of the Cannabis plant are considered narcotics." Well as you just said, it's a plant, it is not a narcotic by definition. Now if we get into the issue of you are processing it and you are processing up to be a higher gradient, a higher grade, have more THC content by volume, whatever, well you get into the issue of processing and sure, it makes total sense to me that you could even declare that stuff sort of narcotics, just like certain other processed plants for example cocaine. If you process it to a certain point, yeah it becomes a narcotic but the Coca leaf itself, it may have some stimulative properties but would you call that plant just standing alone, a narcotic? Maybe you would, I guess under those circumstances but the point I'm trying to make, because that has been listed as a narcotic and it's still sitting there. But that's said, when it comes to the issue of Cannabis, we are talking about a plant here, a flower. I did the video previously talking about it and again you can get me on board with the notion that 'hey if you process this up and you make it super potent, that we are going to list as a narcotic', okay fair enough. But we're seeing it, in real time what the effect is of this flower, this herb, on the overall population and it's not the same effect as legalization of a narcotic would be.

Meanwhile it should be noted that they have allowed methamphetamine or at least one pill associated therewith with to be effectively "decriminalized" insofar as, and in this case I think the term decriminalized is the proper word because there is a law on the books that does say that methamphetamine is a narcotic, but they are saying that well if it's a pill or less, we're just not really going to worry about that. That in the strictest sense of the term is decriminalization but what happened to Cannabis was legalization by dint of the fact it was entirely delisted using Emergency Powers. Now if Emergency Powers come about again, I guess there's an argument to be made that it could be relisted under those Emergency Powers but for now that isn't the case here. We're looking at a situation where in my opinion there should be promulgated law, Bottom-up Law. In the case of the Common Law System that Bottom-up Law occurs through what's called stare decisis, case precedent. Cases go to the Courts, opinions are rendered and then they hold to those opinions later under the Doctrine of stare decisis meaning the 'decision will stand' i.e. the notion of precedent in the Common Law System. The Bottom-up Law aspect of a Civil Law System to my mind, rests entirely on the Doctrine of Codification that in order to make something illegal, the people's representatives in their Parliament, need to codify a law to make it illegal, not the bureaucrats working in the Government just get to unilaterally say something's illegal because they from one day to the next decide that a flower is now a narcotic. That doesn't make any sense. That is not Bottom-up Law and there are those out there legal scholars who know me quite well actually, who criticize me many times that oftentimes I am a little bit more, shall we say sympathetic to the notion of Top-down Law which quite honestly I am under certain circumstances. But in this situation, I distinguish it because it is not warranted here; there is no exigent emergency; there is no exigent need to go out and just unilaterally change the laws on this topic. Again, dogs and cats are not living together; there is not mass hysteria; people are not dying in the streets because of Cannabis. Meanwhile, the same so-called "medical professionals" said we were all going to die in the street if we didn't lock down and do all kinds of insane stuff which they did use an Emergency Decree to do, but still they did so under, in my opinion, ultimately false pretenses albeit I don't think that the folks here in Thailand were operating in bad faith but also the hysteria led to a situation where basic liberties were completely abrogated - I'm not just talking about Thailand here, the United States was just as bad for this - and again it came about because of a lack of a fundamental desire if you will to maintain Bottom-up Law, to maintain Bottom-up promulgation of Laws that regulate us day-to-day people. It came from the top down. It came from people like Tedros and the WHO telling us all what to do, talking down to us all and telling us how we needed to be doing things and it came from a lack of promulgation of laws; it came from a bunch of whims from a bunch of bureaucrats and that is what we are seeing here again. Again let's default to Bottom-up Law, let's pass a Law through Parliament. Let's not just have bureaucrats telling us willy-nilly what is and is not “good” for us. Does anybody remember the echoes of that from COVID when they were all telling us what was “good” for us? It was “good” for us to remain locked in our rooms; it was “good” for us to not see family; it was “good” for us to remain 6 feet apart even though it was completely unnecessary; it was “good” for us to mandate masks except for there was no evidence and still isn't that they do anything and in fact may actually cause more health problems than good. Again this notion from the top down, that what they are doing, again I'm sympathetic to notions of Top-down Law under certain circumstances: where there's an emergency, where there's an exigent need, sure. That doesn't exist here. Quoting further: "And to outline legal ways to cultivate Cannabis for medical and research use which would require a license." Well guess what? All the people operating right now legally are operating with a license. You're talking about this as if we haven't already seen a regime put in place that does have regulatory parameters. It can't be sold to under 20s. Now would I be in favour of passing a criminal law that says it's criminal to sell to under 20s? Yeah absolutely. I'll be on board with that in a heartbeat. 

Meanwhile, this talk as if this is happening in a vacuum, this is already legal; there are already licenses associated with this product. I would really like it if folks in a policy making position would stop speaking disingenuously as if these things don't exist and would stop acting like this is an illegal drug that's just in some limbo. It isn't, it was legalized. It's a product just like anything else that folks can use. Meanwhile it causes a lot less death and destruction than cigarettes and alcohol. And I have to ask, who is behind this big push to make this illegal again or to re-criminalize it again or call it a narcotic again? Who's behind it and why? I was listening to a guy named Mark Faber the other day, I think he lives up in Chiang Mai but he does a lot of podcasts: the Doom or the Boom Doom Gloom, I can't remember what exactly it's called. His name is Mark Faber, he is on YouTube, you can look him up, but he was talking in a recent podcast I was listening to - I'll try to put a link in the description below so you can see what I was talking about - he was talking about that he had gone to multiple bars and grills here in Thailand and their numbers are down; they are not seeing the same numbers. Well then, I was looking at information where they were now wanting to call the "low season": at first I said "well that's low season blues", but then I was thinking about it and I said, "I am looking around here and I'm seeing tourists everywhere; I'm seeing a lot of Farang tourists, much more than we would usually see in a low season. We have also done videos before where certain hoteliers and folks in the tourism sector are calling it the "green season" rather than the low season because folks are coming in, seemingly folks are coming here because of Thailand's policy on Cannabis and they're staying longer, they are staying into the low season because they want to hang out and they want to partake. What's interesting is generally speaking, folks who are consumers of Cannabis products oftentimes are not the greatest consumers for example of alcohol products. So what we could be seeing is a shift in terms of the demographics of tourism and it brings up a good point. Mr. Faber brought up a good point where he said "look, I'm looking around and I am not seeing a lot of folks go to bars and grills and such." Fair enough. I'm looking around and maybe I'm not seeing as many people going to those venues but I am seeing a lot of tourists. Again, it begs the question then. Is this push to illegalize, to call this a narcotic, coming from interests who at one time fully benefited from tourism in terms of what they consumed here in Thailand and now we are seeing same numbers or larger numbers of tourists but they are not necessarily consuming the same products they did in the past? Again, who is behind this push to make Cannabis this 'devil's lettuce', this narcotic, and we should all be afraid of it? Reefer madness kind of nonsense. It really is getting a bit exasperating to watch this because it clearly has not had, and I'm not saying there are not negative aspects to the Cannabis issue or to Cannabis itself. It's not something that should be taken lightly; it is not something that should be viewed as a 100% absolute good. I don't disagree with that notion. But that said, it is also not this super scary evil drug either, so talking like that is kind of nonsensical as well. That stated, quoting further: "He ruled out the consumption of Cannabis for recreational use." "He" ruled out! Not the Parliament, not the people in Thailand, not the people who this rule change, who this "law", wouldn't be a law, and again, you can't just make a rule change that affects people in this fundamental way. That again goes to the basic notions - and again I'm a layman when it comes to Thai law - but that goes to the basic notions of the Doctrine of Codification. So HE just gets to unilaterally decide recreational use is not okay. That doesn't make any sense to me in these circumstances. It looks to me like Parliament needs to make that decision through a promulgated law and again it would not be a decision, it would be through the legislative process. There would be compromises, there would be give and take, and what would come out of the end of that would be something we would all have to deal with. But it would not be the unilateral decision of someone who in my opinion doesn't have the authority to make that decision on their own, at least without Emergency Power. Quoting further: Quote: "That's where the problem lies. People smoke weed in public areas, and the smell bothers those around them," the Minister said." Yeah we talked about this. We talked about this months, if not years ago. The police do have the power to detain, cite and arrest people for nuisance, and they talked about it when this first came down the pike that they would be doing that. Any time I see laws on the books that can be enforced and then a bunch of people talking about "Oh we need to change them", it really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stick up because I'm sitting there saying "no, there's something else here. You're talking about it from the perspective of someone who wants better "law enforcement" but there are already laws there. Use the Nuisance Laws. The Thai Police talked about this the moment this came out, and we talked about it ourselves. I compared it to Seattle's initiative of the "Dude abides, keep it inside". We made the video on that. I think it was called "The Dude Abides, Keep it Inside." And now the Minister of Public Health is talking about this like "oh well, we don't have anything that we can do. People don't like it in public places." Well, have the police cite those people for nuisance. Quoting further: "The Permanent Secretary for Public Health, Opas Karnkawinpong, confirmed the Minister's plan", plan! Again, this is just one person's unilateral thoughts and dreams. This isn't policy per se. So again, and the Press has been, I mean Bangkok Post has kind of oscillated back and forth. I have liked some of the things they have written about; some of the things they have written about, I think is just propaganda spear mongering quite frankly, but again, at the end of the day this is one person's plan and I don't even think they have the authority to unilaterally execute it, if I haven't made that abundantly clear.

And as we discussed in other videos, there are folks out there in the community that support Cannabis, that are talking about "hey if you do this we are going into the Administrative Courts. I have serious questions again regarding whether this can be done without emergency authorization and I wonder - again I'm a layman - but I wonder if that's not a Constitutional Court issue. Meanwhile, the Administrative Courts are set to be filled to the brim, backlogged on their dockets with probably a bunch of Admin Court filings associated with folks who do have a license. Again, going back, "which would require a license", which they talked about. These folks already have a license. This is not the Wild West. They keep talking about this Cannabis issue as if it's just anarchy and you can do whatever you want. You can't. It's already regulated. It's just not regulated the way apparently a few people would like it to be, or it's not regulated enough to the point that it's effectively destroyed as a consumer product which apparently would probably be good news or a boon to folks in big alcohol and big Pharma. Let me read that again. "The Thai Permanent Secretary for Public Health Opas Karnkawinpong, confirmed the Minister's plan to ban," again one person's plan. He is just going to unilaterally, this is as arbitrary as somebody saying: "Me personally, I'm the Minister of Sports in Thailand, Sports and Tourism Minister and I'm going to ban flowers. I'm going to ban roses because I don't like roses, and Roses, the aroma it causes my eyes to water and therefore, or onions, I'm going to ban onions because it's a nuisance to people, it causes people's eyes to water when they cut them." This is that arbitrary; this is that capricious. It makes no sense under these circumstances. Again, there is no exigent need. People are not dying in the streets over this. Quite frankly they're not dying at all. They tried saying that. That narrative was nonsense. When that didn't work then they came out and said “oh it's driving everybody crazy”. That was what they said. They said oh everybody, the shrinks, the psychiatrists, we will wheel them out, except for the fact they wheeled them out the last time they tried to impose another boondoggle on all of us which was COVID, but they wheeled them out and then said it was costing 20 billion Baht a year in medical fees for psychiatrists because Cannabis was legal which is just absolute nonsense. I have seen no data to support that. Again there seem to be people that just don't like Cannabis. I don't know why and that's your opinion and whatever, but your opinion does not get to get codified into law without due legislative process.