Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question "Isn't it ironic that I seem to be agreeing with Bangkok Post on Cannabis policy?" We have done a number of videos talking about Cannabis, Cannabis policy and the recent changes to Thai Law regarding Cannabis. And if you go back a ways, I did a video where I made it pretty clear that yeah Bangkok Post and I, at least the editorial section, were not seeing eye to eye on how Cannabis policy should play out. Now as things have progressed, I think people are starting to see sort of the practical ramifications of all of this and maybe my views from Bangkok Post are coming into a little bit more alignment. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent, what appears being an editorial, in the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Cannabis rules must make sense. Couldn’t agree more, great title by the way. Quoting directly: "It's quite a relief that Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew is ruling out the recriminalization of Cannabis." Well beyond relief, it's just a generally good idea, good policy. Quoting further: "Dr Cholnan said the Phue Thai Government has made it clear in Parliament that Cannabis will only be used for medicinal purposes and relisting it as a narcotic is not possible." Well this whole 'medicinal purposes' thing, let's get into further analysis on that in a moment. That said, by getting into that we then get into the whole dichotomy of 'medicinal purposes', 'recreational use'; I think this whole notion of recreational use, I think it is a red herring more than anything. I think whether or not, how people use things, what they use it for, it's not a good use of the Government's time. Again, we use alcohol in a medical capacity as well and people aren't sitting around trying to figure out how people are using alcohol in a recreational capacity. As long as they are of age and again within reason, they are not drunk-driving or something of this nature, how people utilize recreational alcohol is considered their own business and I think it's a good idea to think of Cannabis in that same way because we are not starting from Cannabis being illegal anymore; Cannabis is now legal in Thailand. We have a very liberal attitude toward Cannabis right now because it is legal and it's a Thai liberty if you will to be able to utilize that product. I think that's a good idea overall; I think it has created a new cash crop for the country; I think it has created a new industry. I think the retail sector is now driving a boom in the commercial real estate sector to some extent, or at least a comparative boom to the way we are seeing the commercial real estate sector play out in other jurisdictions especially in the aftermath of COVID. But the point being and to sum all of this up overall I think Cannabis has been a good thing; I don't think that's unclear from any of the videos I have made. But more importantly from a legal posture this remains legal and so I don't think it is wise to look backward at the days when it was illegal and then utilize any kind of framework from that era on what we do moving forward. That's not the best way to go about this. 

That said, quoting further: "Some state agencies eagerly wanted to bring it back to the narcotics list. It would be ironic for a country that tolerates the possession of five methamphetamine pills to get tough on Cannabis." Yeah that was kind of the point of this video. The notion that that we are going to be liberal on methamphetamine and then go really hard on Cannabis seems nonsensical when you look at it in the totality of the circumstances. Quoting further: "Allowing recreational use with proper regulations while enacting measures to protect non-cannabis users in public places can be acceptable." Yeah I've said this sort of from the get-go, the whole notion of public use. I thought it was a good idea that yeah this should be behind closed doors. I don't think anybody has any problem with that and before people start saying "well what about alcohol? we can do that in public?" Look, when you imbibe on alcohol and you exhale, unless you are right up next to somebody, you burp and they smell your beer, people don't notice that you're drinking a beer or a glass of wine or whatever, a vodka tonic, or whatever, a cocktail, you are not impacting other people. So I can understand the argument of saying "look there's a smell that comes from this product; there's smoke that comes off of this product; we don't necessarily want this in the public sphere all the time." That makes some sense to me. I can get with that

so come up with some kind of Licensing structure where people can have sort of rooms available, or spaces, or lounges or whatever where people can choose to partake of these things. I don't see where that is a big issue. And frankly I haven't really noticed a lot of egregious usage of the product since its legalization here in Thailand, quite honestly other than the tourists. If anybody I want to get on about it, I'll see tourists sitting in the middle of the street smoking a joint and it's like, I have done the videos on this, they can cite you for nuisance on that and there is part of me that thinks they probably should, at the end of the day, especially where you are a guest in this country. So quoting further: "How do we determine that someone is using marijuana to treat their migraine? What about sick people who need the plant to boost their appetite, is it medicinal or recreational?" Again that's a good piece, that's a good data point there, that's a good point to really flesh out. The reason for not trying to get into all of this "is it recreational, is it not?" is because, we have watched medical tyranny out her. We have seen it with our own eyes where people were saying you can't breathe except under certain circumstances. That same line of logic in my opinion applies to this whole medicinal/non-medicinal, who cares. We don't need the Government getting into all of that. It's just really quite honestly not their place. The whole notion of, Public Health I understand. Yes major medical events occur. A smallpox epidemic or something like this and in the sort of olden days, if you want to look back, go back and watch the show Deadwood where they put together sort of the first City Council; they do law enforcement; they do sort of a judiciary, a Mayor and they do, they pick a Public Health Inspector. Now it was not viewed as this omnipotently powerful body, it was meant for a very narrow subset of circumstances wherein yes, you may need some rather, for lack of a better term, stringent and dynamic leadership to be utilized in sort of emergency situations. Now unfortunately, where we found ourselves with COVID is something was deemed an emergency that I question whether or not it was truly the emergency that they deemed it. But leaving that aside, we have seen what happens when you let a Public Health apparatus sit around sit around dictating to people what is and is not within the orthodoxy of Public Health. It wasn't a great idea; it's not a great idea here either, and when you look at it within the totality of the notions of just basic sort of Thai liberties, basic human rights things of that nature, why do we really need them to dictate this to us, especially with something that doesn't kill anybody. I would actually be more in favour of the Public Health Ministry getting involved with levels of alcohol being imbibed by people that I would be levels of Cannabis. I mean worst case scenario with Cannabis, people go to sleep. Again unless they are operating motor vehicles, and that's another issue entirely and quite honestly law enforcement is well equipped to deal with that so why is there all of this overreach from the Public Health sector.

Quoting further: "Basically, the Law must respect the rights of individuals to get fair access to this herbal plant." Well put. Quoting further: "The permission process must recognize the right to home use, which means those wishing to grow the plant in a limited way, perhaps up to five or seven plants, can do so." Okay, hmmm. I buy everything in there except this whole "permission process".  I don't see where that is even necessary. Now a grow operation as opposed to home usage? Yeah okay, I can kind of see where regulatorily speaking, you don't want to have somebody setting up a massive warehouse next to your house to grow a bunch of Cannabis. Yeah, yes, that's kind of a zoning issue but this whole, again we have to get off of this notion of "permission to use" and what not. Okay, where are all these notions of "well you need 'permission' to use alcohol if you are over the age of consent to drink!" Come on, where is that? We don't have that and we don't have it for a reason. It's nonsense, it's antithetical to basic notions of people being able to do as they want with their own body. In my mind it is nonsensical. Quoting further: "Zoning rules must be established to ensure Cannabis stores are not located too close to schools." Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, couldn't agree more with that. "Bad traders selling Cannabis to young people must be punished to the maximum extent." Again, couldn't agree more. I have said that many times in many other videos. Again the thing I just think people need to get away from and I think Bangkok Post has now come to a much more reasonable position with regard to this whole issue and I'm glad to see that and I'm glad to see that sort of cooler heads have prevailed and they have kind of found reason on this because it might have been born from just watching practical anecdotal evidence of the fact that this is not the most harmful thing in the world and it could quite possibly be a massive benefit to Thailand's economy and again it doesn't kill anybody. When you do the cost/benefit analysis on this thing, the benefits way out weigh the cost least from where I'm sitting. That being said, again I have to stress this whole notion of permissions and even continued discussion of recreational use, I think that that's counterproductive because again it's not looking at the situation for what it is. 1) it is already legal. Why should Thais restrict themselves over this at this point, where they know what it is, we all know what this thing does. Again it's not killing anybody, it does have impact; it intoxicates people; it can make people do things that they might otherwise not do. Again regulate it, fine. Booze is regulated, alcohol is regulated. But that being said people aren't sitting around getting all up in arms over recreational usage of alcohol versus medicinal usage of alcohol. 

So that is my whole point in all of this and it is good to see that Bangkok Post is coming around more to my way of thinking apparently or in my opinion just sort of a rational way and a rational framework of dealing with this. That said, all of this kind of remains in a state of flux. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.