Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing The Volstead Act. Why are we discussing this? Well I'll get into it here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that's pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's days and nights as a weed heaven now look to be numbered. There seems to be a lot of sort of sensationalism out there across the board. I get it the Press is the Press, they have to do what they have to do. Then the clicky world of the internet, you have to attract clicks, I get it, it is part of the business model. But I don't necessarily think that Cannabis just sort of going up in smoke as it were, is as likely as it has sort of been made out in a few different media outlets. That said, this is quite a nuanced article and it is very good. As usual, Pattaya Mail tends to put out really good stuff, it is one of the reasons they are kind of my go-to place when I am looking for information about what is going on. But let me just get further into this, okay. Quoting further: "A leaf could also be borrowed from the Volstead Act of 1919 which introduced the prohibition of alcohol era in the United States. It's worth noting that Volstead criminalized the production and distribution of alcohol but not the actual drinking of it. Applied to Thailand, this would mean that the police emphasis would be on the producers of Cannabis rather than the customers." Well also, the Volstead Act and the entirety of prohibition is basically one giant example of complete jurisprudential mismanagement of a social issue, okay.

The Volstead Act was a by-product of a Constitutional amendment to the United States Constitution which prohibited alcohol; it created a period of time in the United States called prohibition. I am having a hard time keeping a straight face while making this video because my producer is now, he was unaware that I was making this video and he is now laughing to death because quite honestly prohibition was a massive failure on so many fronts it's not even, I could go into the myriad ways that it was a total failure. There's a good argument to be made that although it might not have created organized crime in the United States, it certainly bolstered it because when alcohol became illegal, all of the big gangs got into it, I mean that's how the Commission in New York was created. I mean there's a film it has, oh I'm forgetting his name off the top of my head if you go back, Slater, Christian Slater, there is a movie with Christian Slater, I think it's called Mobsters which is like a '90s movie where they get into Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Meyer Lansky and how all of those guys came together and basically took over the illegal liquor rackets amongst other things and thrived basically. I mean it caused the mob to thrive in the United States and in fact arguably cutting away prohibition probably did more harm to the bottom line of organized crime in the United States and maybe anything else that happened in the 20th century, at the same time making liquor illegal also again bolstered that same entity at the same time. 

So point of this video, I do not think it would be a good idea for Thailand to look at prohibition as a possible template for how to deal with Cannabis. Quite honestly I think they were doing a pretty good job; the last Government was doing a pretty good job on this until there was some sort of political kerfuffle. I still don't fully understand it from what I have read. It seems to have something to do, on the one hand there are issues pertaining to the way alcohol licensing works in Thailand and there are political actors who support changes to that. Meanwhile there are political actors who are supporting these changes to Cannabis Laws in Thailand. My thinking is perhaps a transparent regulatory structure for both things and a deregulation in terms of alcohol, might not be a bad thing for smaller producers. I haven't done a lot of videos on that but maybe I will moving forward. One thing I know for sure, having a pretty deep understanding of the history of American Law which literally is the definition of jurisprudence, prohibition was a jurisprudence nightmare. It was a nightmare for American law; it was not a good move; it clearly I mean this is where you get the quote from FDR: "Upon the repeal of prohibition the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Yeah pretty much. Prohibition is almost kind of similar to like COVID insofar as there was especially through like the Women's Christian Temperance Union and things, they whipped up a lot of kind of hysteria against the demon rum or whatever and then meanwhile here's the mob with open arms saying yeah, make it illegal because all the better for us sort of thing. Again, not an example, not an example in any way. In fact it is probably the opposite of an example, it's exactly what you don't want to do when talking about regulating what was once a controlled substance or having an uncontrolled substance that becomes regulated. Perhaps a better way to deal with it would be 1) Tax it. I agree with that completely. All of these, you know this notion of a Tourist Tax and these other things. Pretty sure Thailand can get the money it needs out of Cannabis taxation better than it can get out of much of anything else that currently I can see out there. Also, create a transparent regulatory structure. Again, I've said it before and I will say it again, you sell to kids that's a crime, you are doing real time for that, jail time. As you should. And again, there should be rules and regulations pertaining to it but this notion that we should take a page from the prohibition handbook, NO, that has been proven historically to have been a gargantuan failure.