Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis Regulation here in Thailand and boy there have been some interesting developments here. I don't usually, again we have discussed this in detail, I don't like to sort of veer into the political especially domestic politics here in Thailand. It is not the thrust of this channel, it is not the bailiwick of this channel if you will, but every now and again, especially with regard to this Cannabis situation because it is still in its early days and we are still sort of seeing how this is going to evolve, it's going to bump up against sort of the political news sphere if you will, a little bit so bear with me on that. I thought that there was a lot of interesting stuff going on in a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Prayut denies UTN-Chuvit link. Again, not getting into politics here the thrust of this article goes rather political. I'm going to quote some excerpts here to kind of parse out the point of this video which we are wanting to discuss regulation of Cannabis here in Thailand. Quoting directly, and again I urge folks who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail; a lot of interesting stuff going on there, a lot of insight in there. Quoting directly: "Yesterday Mr. Chuvit turned up in front of Government House again with a group of six pupils to stage a symbolic protest against Bhumjaithai's Cannabis policy." Quoting further: "He said he was not opposed to the Cannabis Policy but rather the lack of effective regulations to protect children from abuse and easy access to Cannabis products." This is me talking now. Sure, I think that is totally reasonable. We definitely need regulations here in Thailand to deal with that as we have discussed at length on this channel pretty much since we started talking about this topic. Quoting further: "His move came after Public Health Authorities inspected a Cannabis shop located at the Davis Bangkok Hotel owned by Mr. Chuvit on Monday. In a video clip, Mr. Chuvit who was clearly annoyed by the inspection, announced that he would campaign against the Bhumjaithai Party.” Quoting further: "Meanwhile, Thongchai Lertwilairatanapong," (sorry, translation of Thai ‘namsakul’ or last names sometimes throws me off) quoting further: "Chief of the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine, said the move was simply part of the monthly Cannabis shop inspections and it was not unfairly aimed at Mr. Chuvit." Now I don't know the politics here; I don't really care quite frankly. The thrust of this video is to discuss sort of the ongoing evolution of jurisprudence pertaining to Cannabis here in Thailand and it brings up a good point which is I have heard this a lot out there, people saying "we need regulations" and yeah we absolutely need to regulate it, just like alcohol, to keep it away from children, sure. Agree, we all agree. There shouldn't be Cannabis shops popping up next to kindergartens, that's not a good idea, I totally get that.

That being said, I have noticed a lot of, let me do some full disclosure here, I am a naturalized Thai, this is actually going to be the first election season that I get to actually vote in Thailand which for me is going to be kind of interesting. On a personal note, I kind of have a personal affinity for Mr. Anutin who is the one that kind of, promulgated these changes with regard to Cannabis Policy. That said, I would like to think that I can keep an objective perspective on things. I was very critical of certain things and I quoted Mr. Anutin himself in prior videos where I was critical of various policies that he had come up with under certain circumstances, but that said this Cannabis thing, if you can't tell from our discussions in prior videos on this channel, I view it as very much, if it's done right and I do agree with regulation, but I view it as something that very much is a positive benefit to Thailand most assuredly a benefit to the Thai Economy. And quite honestly, as we discussed in the summer of '22 going through into the fourth quarter of '22, the economic benefits that have accrued as a result of the change in policy on Cannabis here in Thailand I think are substantial and I think we saw that in the fact that quite honestly the Baht roared back in terms of strength although it's a little weaker at the moment as we have discussed in another video made contemporaneously with this one, but at the end of the day it helped create an entrepreneurial business environment. You see shops popping up, you see jobs being created; that's a benefit and you have to put that into the benefit column. But if you are doing a cost benefit analysis, you have to look at the cost and I totally get it. Regulation is very much something I think that we need but I don't think it's a great idea again and this may be wishful thinking on my part, I don't think it is a great idea of politicizing this issue going into the election cycle because quite honestly, as discussed in other videos, and as other commentators in the Press and things have discussed, it's not going to go back to what it was before this legalization occurred; you are not going to be able to put that genie back in the bottle, I don't think. As a result, talking hyperbolically about "oh it all needs to go away", that's not doing anybody any favours.

Now clearly in this situation, regulation was the topic. Okay, there is some regulation right now, already. There are inspections that happened, we discussed in other videos; folks that don't have a license to sell these products have faced criminal charges and in some instances have faced fines and again this is something that is a byproduct of regulation. So again, to sort of circle back to the title if you will and the point of this video, what is it going to be? If you want regulation, there is going to be regulation but if you don't want regulation, well then it's going to be unregulated. At the end of the day, as I have discussed many, many times on this channel, I think regulation is far better and is going to be far more effective at the end of the day especially on a public policy level sort of with regard to being able to broadly deal with the problems associated with Cannabis while garnering the benefits to not only the nation but the economy, I think that is possible and I think that is going to most effectively be carried out through regulation rather than sort of running around and saying "we are going to re-illegalize" or this and that or just over politicizing things. At the end of the day, we need to have a rational conversation about regulating this product here in the Kingdom of Thailand.