Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing unfortunately it looks like raids on Cannabis shops are now commencing here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from The Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: Officials raid Cherng Talay Cannabis shops. Quoting directly: "The Thalang District Office has ordered the immediate suspension of licenses for seven Cannabis shops found to be in violation of regulations during a coordinated inspection operation conducted yesterday." So first things first and the thing I understand is, I have got real issues with the way this has been rolled out; I have done the videos on that already. They are talking about, and I stress talking about, adding Cannabis to the list of narcotics although it has yet to occur. I don't think that's legally proper as I have discussed another videos, due to what I call the Doctrine of Codification. And in videos I get into in our paid news service, which anybody that is interested you can email us at [email protected] for more information on our paid new service and subscribing to the paid new service. We also, it is also worth noting that while I am talking about this, I have also opened along with my better half, a restaurant here in Thailand, Pancake Palace, for anybody who's interested and I guess while we are talking about Cannabis, maybe people can get hungry or something, but yeah we have American diner style food over there: cheeseburgers, chilli bowls, buffalo wings. We have also got breakfast anytime, and of course pancakes. There's a link in the description below to our location, but back to the point of this. 

Yeah, Cannabis shops look to be getting raided. I do not think that legally this has been correctly done and as I discussed another videos, I think there is going to be massive negative ramifications for this across the business sector here in Thailand because the way this has been done and really the only way to describe it is in such an arbitrary and capricious manner, it calls into question whether folks in the future can rely upon policy changes for the long term, in any of the business sectors. You have to remember, 18,000 operations here in Thailand had affirmative licenses that as of the time of this video, two weeks ago, were perfectly legitimate and legal and now they are saying, "oh well these regulations, we're going to raid you for this, and we're talking about putting it back on the narcotics list." It's not conducive to a lot of confidence in terms of foreign investment, I have just got to be honest on that. 

That said, I want to go through this article in detail and hats off to The Phuket News, this is quite good coverage. Quoting further: "The inspections were carried out by the Thalang District Office from 1:30pm to 4:30pm, in collaboration with the Phuket Public Health Office." Now to be clear, the Public Health Ministry does have regulatory oversight on this, that part of this has not been really disputed. That said, they haven't rolled it out in a very transparent manner, and they just come up with these, “hey, we have done an about face on policy”, within two weeks, so people haven't really had a lot of time to adjust to or even understand what the rules are. So you have got to understand the context of this. "The Thalang District Public Health Office, Cherng Talay Police, village headmen and security personnel from the Volunteer Defense Corps." Quoting further: "A total of eight Cannabis shops in the Cherng Talay area were inspected. Of these, only one shop was found to be fully compliant with the regulations. The inspection uncovered multiple violations across the remaining seven shops including: - and for those out there who are in this space, pay close attention to this because it has given some data points for some things to watch out for your own operation. So quoting again: "The inspection uncovered multiple violations across the remaining seven shops including:" so these are things they currently consider violations of Regulation:

"smoking cannabis on the premises at two shops; failure to submit required reports documenting the source and quality of controlled herbs (Por Tor 27) and their usage (Por Tor 28) at five shops." Now that is something I have seen discussed in the social media space surrounding Cannabis as well as in articles where they have just foisted this on everybody in the past couple of weeks and this is an incredibly Byzantine bureaucratic regime that has to be abided by. And on top of that, supply chains don't just move at the drop of a dime, okay/ Again, it has been 10, 14 days since all these changes have come down and now they are saying, "hey where's your paperwork for all of this?" It smacks of a little bit of disingenuousness to my mind. 

That said, quoting further: 

"Advertising of controlled herbs at three shops." - Again where are the rules that stipulate this stuff? And again, it's worth noting, none of this has been passed through Parliament. This is just unilaterally decided by the bureaucracy here. Quoting further: "Sale of cannabis extracts without proper authorization at two shops. Samples from these shops are now under analysis to determine whether they fall under the Herbal Products Act or the Narcotics Code." Now on that one, that is the whole extracts thing from day one, and I actually went out and got licensed up in the Cannabis space. We never really did any operations or anything, but we did it mostly because I wanted to see what it was like and I'm reserving those licenses because long-term, I think there's a different business model I might end up in with regard to this but it's more in sort of the logistics, and legal, and compliance side of things. But from the get-go, extracts were always not part of standard licensing. There could be added licensure you might be able to get to deal with things involving more processed products but to begin with, that was never part of the original regime.  So on that, that sounds more legitimate to me. Then on top of it, if it's processed to the point where you are talking about very potent product coming out as an end result, or potent by-product, that may be covered under the Narcotics Act; it may always have been. So again, that data point to my mind seems more in line with the regulations as they were even before we saw this major about face than these other things. That said, quoting further: "The infractions led to the immediate suspension of the cannabis shop licenses involved, the Thalang District Office reported. Thalang Officials also vowed that proactive enforcement will continue to ensure that Cannabis sales comply with the Ministry of Public Health's guidelines to maintain public order in the area." Well again they are trying to do through regulations what they are refusing to go through Parliament and do in my opinion legally correctly through proper legislative due process. But that being said, again it is not yet or it is not a narcotic; I don't really think it can be legally considered a narcotic until it goes through Parliament. That said, there may be other much more bright minds on that issue than of myself who have other opinions, but this is sort of the state of play at the moment.

Yeah, we are looking at tightened regulations, we are looking at heightened scrutiny and we are looking effectively at raids and crackdowns on Cannabis, at least shops that are out of compliance with the “regulations”, whatever those may be which are kind of hard to decipher at the moment. But that's the state of play and we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.