Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing something akin to a middle path for foreigners in the Cannabis business here in Thailand. Now I did a prior video where I said one of the biggest issues I think facing the Thai economy that nobody was talking about is the issue associated with Cannabis and foreign participation in that particular industry. I'm sure there were those out there that didn't like me making that video or don't like my opinion on this; I do have friends that are in the Cannabis space as well that I've noticed really haven't said much to me although some of them were quite vocal and sent me some interesting correspondence. So I got to thinking about it, I thought to myself; ‘What concerns me about foreigners in the Cannabis space?' Well what concerns me is I do believe that this is sort of a ‘Thailand for the Thais kind of issue’. This is agriculture; it pertains to land heavily. Both of those things are highly restricted to Thai Nationals and always have been. I mean this is thematic, this is not like legal necessarily. This is sort of paradigmatic; this is how it has always been. Thailand insulates its labour pool, its economy in many ways from foreign interference and foreign influence. And I think in the Cannabis space, especially where Thailand has first mover advantage and possibly can have substantial comparative advantage in this space long term, in arguably the largest agribusiness with the most upward potential that we have seen in what, 100 years, or since the advent of tobacco as a cash crop. I mean when was the last time we saw this in a legal context in a long time. I mean I can't even think of the analog for that. 

That being said, to completely not have the foreigners involved, I can understand where there are those that say "well again it needs to be balanced" and I was thinking about that then I remembered we did a video years back, when this was first coming to the foreground, where we were seeing legalization sort of slowly creeping forward. I am going to go ahead, this is actually from our website legal.co.th. I made a video years back: Thai Hemp Business: Will Foreign Corporate Ownership be Possible? and in there quoting, I'm going to quote from myself basically: "There was a recent article from Khao Sod English, that is khaosodenglish.com, the title: Weed Laws: Cannabis License and Foreigners Growing Hemp. It’s written by Wirot Poonsuwan, Attorney at Law, so a Thai Attorney on this. I'm going to quote very briefly from this and provide a little bit of analysis on my own. Quoting directly: “Hemp: - Lastly, it would be remiss to mention these remarkable changes without discussing hemp, a plant that could help revitalize the Thai economy. A little known fact is that foreigners can grow Hemp by 2021 according to law companies, where foreigners control no larger than 33% of shares will be allowed to grow hemp for commercial medicinal purposes in 2021 after the three year government trial projects in Northern provinces end in 2020." 

Now as you recall as we have discussed in other videos, so this was legalized utilizing quite an unorthodox strategy by the then Minister of Public Health, Anutin Charnvirakul who pulled it off in Narcotics list when he had Emergency Powers due to the Covid Pandemic. Then in the aftermath of that, we actually did not see Parliament pass a law; it got caught up in sort of political shenanigans I guess, and we didn't actually see a finalized law promulgated. So we're still in sort of a vacuum here.

The point I am trying to make here is again I've been vocal in my concern about foreign interference and foreign influence over the Cannabis Business here in Thailand, the Cannabis industry. Maybe a little bit softer touch would be to say okay yeah they can be involved but only up to 1/3 ownership in terms of equity and as we discussed at the time in that other video, also the Board, the Board of the Company can only have foreigners representing a third of the overall Board as well; that was what was proposed at that time. Now whether or not this comes about in whatever we end up seeing as the promulgated legislation and it's not a foregone conclusion that we will get that past anytime soon, but I'm anticipating we will probably see some movement on that over the course of the next 6 - 9 months, but long story short, again maybe this is sort of the way to strike a balance where foreigners want to sort of invest and be involved in the industry but without sort of basically ceding if you will the primary position of the Thais with respect to this industry and in this market globally and here in Thailand.