Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis in Thailand. Unfortunately, for all the talk from some quarters about democracy and rule of law, I haven't seen a lot of it adherence to those notions when it comes to the issue of Cannabis here in Thailand. What are we talking about? Well going back, look I get it, the way Cannabis was legalized in Thailand is very odd especially to outsiders, and let's not kid ourselves Thailand, outside undue influence would very much like to have an impact upon Cannabis Policy domestically, and not to Thailand’s benefit; let's bear that in mind, okay. It ain't that long ago that the British East India Company was a thing; that's important to bear in mind just generally speaking, when thinking of these topics just sort of in a broad sense. That being said, I'm not particularly pointing to the British East India Company or something, but the point I'm trying to make is there is a lot of interest in the topic throughout the world here in little Thailand. I mean it has ramifications elsewhere and we'd be naive to not look at that. 

Another thing to bear in mind with respect to this is we were supposed to get an Act of Parliament, what 2 years, 18 months, 3 years ago, whatever it was? I did the videos at the time when they tried what I'm going to discuss here sort of once before, where oh we can do all this through regulation, we can just do whatever we want unilaterally, notwithstanding the fact we haven't promulgated and underlying law that says we can do this stuff with Cannabis. Bear in mind, it's an odd posture that Cannabis found itself in here in Thailand especially with regard to legality specifically Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul, the former Minister of Public Health, now the Prime Minister as well as the Interior Minister, when he first legalized this - and let's be clear, that's what he did - he did it under the auspices of the Emergency Decree that was still in effect after having been brought forth in March of 2020 in response to the so-called "COVID pandemic" I put that in quotation (correction) marks much akin to Dr. Evil in the movie Austin Powers, but during that time period, and the law is pretty clear. We had a promulgated law regarding, it was the Communicable Diseases Act; there were emergency powers that could be conferred under that Act. They were duly conferred, and the Minister of Public Health at the time, Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul during the time he had emergency powers, unilaterally opted to pull Cannabis off of the list of Narcotics in Thailand. Subsequent to that, the Emergency Decree ended and it has not been reactivated since because we haven't been under any scenario that it was warranted to need to be reactivated. So that's the important thing to understand. From that moment forward, Cannabis is like another set of plants. It's like tulips or flowers or whatever, again, not completely, there were regulations that were initially promulgated associated with Cannabis, most notably no sales to under 20-year-olds, no sales to pregnant women but again, all of that was initially promulgated under the powers of the Emergency Decree. We were operating during that time frame, under the Emergency Decree. So, he did this while that was in effect. Subsequent to that, the Decree expired, it extinguished, it no longer was in effect. So in order to at least as I see it, and I haven't been disputed on this, in order to re-illegalize cannabis or to regulate it past what initially was done, we would need a promulgated law through Parliament from whence could spring regulation.

Since then though, especially during what I call the rump coalition government of the past Parliament, the one that was just recently dissolved December 12th and we are now awaiting new elections which are set to come February the 8th, under that Parliament, under the rump Coalition after Mr. Anutin and his Party Bhumjaithai seized to be part of the government which all occurred in through the aftermath of all of everything that started along the border sort of began with the Paetongtarn leaked phone call, but whatever, basically Bhumjaithai left the coalition, and then the rump Coalition tried to say, "oh we can start regulating things”. I brought it up at the time and not only was that a terrible idea from a business side of things it had serious legal implications. For one thing, people had already gotten on their licenses and were operating pursuant to the law that existed there at that time. Moreover, you can't just do through regulation, what you haven't done through promulgated law. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand. Meanwhile, again circling back, to these people that go on and on about democracy and rule of law, where are you? Here we are in a situation where by the way Thais gained liberty out of this odd situation involving the Emergency Decree and now all the same people that go on and on about these notions, a lot of them seem to have no problem with the idea of just somebody unilaterally say "oh because we say so, this is going to be the way it is", without any legitimacy backing it up. It's just sort of "oh well, this is how it's going to be." Well, where's the law for those regulations to be brought forth? We haven't had one, and let's be real clear, everybody in the Coalition that had issues with it at the time that they tried to do this initially, all agreed; this was back under Srettha's government or toward the end of it, all agreed, "okay, we will go through Parliament." Well that never happened? Well, why would that be? Could it possibly be perhaps because there is no, not no, but there is not a massively or substantial enough popular mandate to do what these folks are trying to do with respect to Cannabis? I raise that question frequently, as noted on this channel.

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post print edition. We will go ahead and throw this up on screen under the headline: Cannabis shops face clampdown. Quoting directly: "The Ministry of Public Health is pushing to enact a new Ministerial Regulation on Cannabis before the next Government takes office." Before the next Government! We are in a caretaker government here. This isn't a Government that is comprised of a Parliament that's sitting. No, the Government has been dissolved; the current Administration is in like a stewardship kind of holding pattern and we are waiting for a new Parliament. Parliament presumptively promulgates laws. Not "oh, we just make it up on the fly while we are sitting here in the interim". Quoting further: "with the draft now under review by the Office of the Council of State." Well, my big question is whatever they come up with, will they listen? Because we saw in the rump Coalition. Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai who was acting Prime Minister decided to disregard the Council of State - don't really know what his thinking was behind that, but that did occur, we made the videos at the time - and I'm not saying that will occur here but again back to my main point here. We're sitting here in an interim; we are sitting here at a time where there isn't an actual Parliament. We're waiting on a set date for the election which is coming February 8th, where's the rush? where's the fire as it were? To quote the song Vienna by Billy Joel? Where's the fire; what's the hurry about? Are people in the streets rising up, saying that we have got to illegalized Cannabis, or we have got to clamp down? Quoting further: "The regulations recently forwarded for legal scrutiny would mark a major shift in the Cannabis sector by restricting sales to designated venues such as hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, herbal shops and authorized folk healer premises." Where is the law for promulgating those kinds of regulations? Is there any law that says you can't go ahead and do things like sell tulips with all these stipulations? I've done the analysis on this before; I'll continue to do it, happily. That said, quoting further: "Sellers would be required to obtain licenses from the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine which also provides mandatory training." Again, where is the legal authority to do any of that? It's clear at what Anutin had at the time that he made the initial rules with regard to sales, because again it was happening under the Emergency Decree which was promulgated law. It allowed him as Minister of Public Health to pull all this stuff and do what he needed to do, but again the rules that were stipulated to under those auspices, were what? Can't sell to people under 20 years old, great rule; can't sell to pregnant women, good rule. Again, it's treated as if it was like alcohol here, which brings up a good point. Where is the push for all this coming from? Couldn't possibly be from Big Alcohol interests or Big Pharma interests, could it? And again, we're doing this at a time where we are sitting here in the interim between two elected governments and we are going to promulgate all of these changes, not through Parliament, through due legislative process. No, we're just going to make it up as we go. And again, not with the same power that Anutin used when he removed it from the list. Quoting further: "Public Health Minister Pattana Phromphat said the Ministry had submitted the draft for consideration, though it remained unclear whether approval would come in time. Quote: "I will sign the regulation the moment it reaches me, and it will take effect immediately," he said." How can that be? Again, for all the talk of rule of law, due process, democracy and things, "oh no, we're just going to go ahead and do this." Why don't we leave it to Parliament? At the end of the day, and as we will get to here in a moment, this also impacts people who have detrimentally relied upon the legal system as it has existed heretofore.

And to just pull the rug out from under these people create all kinds of legal problems to say the least, for practical ones as well. People who invested money and sweat equity and time and resources into their business to own a licensed business, to just be told from one second to the next , “oh this is how it works now”, and by the way, not based on any promulgated law, just, “oh whatever, because we say so.” Quoting further: “Quote: “As for the next government I cannot predict whether Cannabis Policy will change, but if it stays on the same course, the Bill can proceed.” Well how about we just go through the process of passing a law? Why all of this other stuff? And beyond even that, what's the authority for that? We know where Anutin got the authority. Well he was Minister of Public Health, but we were also under the Emergency Decree. To do this kind of thing that has this level of ramifications and there's no promulgated law on it? I mean could they tomorrow just start saying oh yeah if you want to buy roses you have to fill out a form, but if you want to buy tulips you can only buy those through licensed, authorized florists. It's the same thinking. There has been no promulgated law with regard to Cannabis and it's restriction other than what was initially brought forth when it was pulled off the narcotics list to begin with. Again, no one under 20, no pregnant women. Quoting further: “He noted that the draft would not need to return to Cabinet even if delayed; a new Minister could either continue with it or scrap it, depending on policy direction.” Well okay, yes, any government can, but again I really find this very, I have got to be honest with you, I don't think there's legal authority here for this kind of mechanism or I seriously question it in light of the past history with respect to the law on this subject matter. But that said, yeah presumably the next Cabinet can do what it needs to do because it will have been elected and it will have been put together through due process. Quoting further: “According to the Department, Thailand currently has 18,433 registered Cannabis shops. Of these, 8,636 licenses expired last year and just 1,339 outlets renewed their permits. So 8,636, okay takes us down to just under 10,000. 1,339 went ahead and renewed. So somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 licensed operators are currently in place and those folks got licenses under a legal framework that was initially set up under Mr. Anutin when this stuff was pulled off of the narcotics list back under the Emergency Decree. So now 11,000 operators, who have otherwise gone through the process, done the right thing, gotten all of their documentation in order, just have to deal with the arbitrary and capriciousness of basically a bureaucracy, again not apropos of a law, not based on promulgated law, just apropos of nothing frankly. We're just going to start changing everything around even though you detrimentally relied upon your license. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense with regard to the way Thailand's due process system works with respect to legislative due process, nor does it make any sense with respect to the fact that those who got their license, are licensed. So you are substantively changing the terms of the license? So what's the license worth then?

This is a bad way to make policy and it's definitely not the way you promulgate law, because they are doing everything but actually promulgating a law through Parliament. It's been agreed previously at the political level in the prior Parliament when this issue came up before, and the decision was hey let's put it before Parliament. Now that never happened for a variety of different reasons, but at the end of the day that was the agreement, and that is a good idea and I think quite frankly sitting here with about a month left before the next election, why wouldn't we put this to Parliament? We have plenty of opportunities to do so. There's no exigent need to change this on the fly. Let's just go ahead and let the people who detrimentally relied upon their licenses to continue to operate and then deal with this through promulgated law in a new Thai Parliament after the elections?