Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing cannabis specifically Law on Cannabis here in Thailand yet again. Kind of a hot topic here in recent weeks, arguably one of if not the biggest development legally in Thailand over the course of the past year, maybe second only to the Supreme Court's hearing on the Prime Minister's tenure in office. I would say it was probably bigger legal news but only just. This is a major sea changes in terms of not only policy but law here in Thailand.  

I thought of making this video after reading two articles recently. The first one was from Thai PBS World, thaipbsworld.com, the article is titled: Cannabis Bill addresses all concerns raised by Democrat and Pheu Thai parties. "The Cannabis Bill, which has been reviewed by the House Scrutiny Committee, addresses all the concerns raised by both the Democrat and Pheu Thai Parties, said Supachai Jaismut, Head of the Committee and a party-list MP for the Bhumjaithai Party. He said that the Committee had thoroughly reviewed the controversial Bill and addressed concerns over the ease of access to cannabis for recreational purposes by youth." This is me talking now. That is a key concern out there and I do understand it. Something needs to be done about that. If this is going to, especially in a recreational context, is going to sort of go mainstream, things need to be in place so the kids don't get a hold of it. I think that's laudable, it needs to be done, needs to be done with alcohol as well. It is just how it should be. Quoting further: "He claimed that the committee had taken some provisions from the Liquor, Cigarettes and Kratom Act and modified them for inclusion in the Cannabis Bill." 

So okay, that seems innocuous enough but as we talked about last week on this channel, there was rather major shakeup when the main opposition party called for the dissolution of Bhumjaithai. I didn't do a video on this because it happened after we do our usual video tranche for the week but within a day, they did a U-turn on that and they said "no, no, we don't want to do that," and now again, the title of this from Thai PBS World, Cannabis Bill addresses all concerns raised by Democrat and Pheu Thai parties, and those were the parties that were having an issue with this in a Parliamentary context. So again, that would appear to signal forward momentum if you will with respect to the Bill. 

With respect to what happened last Tuesday, I can go ahead and quote from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, article is titled: Pheu Thai does U-Turn over petition. Quoting directly: “The Pheu Thai Party has changed his mind about seeking to disband the Bhumjaithai Party over the latter’s Cannabis policy, now saying the issue needs time for careful study. The party made its U-turn a day after it said it believed Bhumjaithai's flagship policy of decriminalizing Cannabis was done to deceive people into giving it their mandate so it could acquire power." Yeah that was a little weird kind of theory. We talked about that in my video I think it was Monday, I think it came out Monday night and then these developments happened on Tuesday and now a week later it looks like everything's moving along. 

So again, politics are politics. I don't like to lean into politics too much, that's not the purpose of the channel but this is a major legal issue. People have been asking me about it, it is something that's really kind of the biggest legal news right now in Thailand and people are kind of interested in it, not only in Thailand, but internationally. So it appears to me, at least as of the time of this video, that yeah we are looking at a situation where the momentum is looking like it is behind the Bill so it seems like it is a pretty, I think it's cautiously optimistic to believe that ultimately we are going to see some kind of Bill promulgated on this issue in the relatively near future.