Transcript of the above video: 

This video is somewhat Cannabis News and somewhat kind of ongoing commentary on the political situation here in Thailand. The thumbnail is actually from a film called "Meet Joe Black". There is a scene in there and in the photo credit in the description in the video, the description below, you can go to a link and watch the scene, it's a great scene. I love it. It is the culmination of a film. The scene in and of itself is just brilliantly acted. Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins and I can't remember the name off the top of my head of the other actor - he's a great actor as well - he is a sort of character and it is just a great scene and there is this line that kept going through my head when I was reading this article: " Machinations so Machiavellian, it has rarely been my experience to see them", I believe was the line, and Brad Pitt, in Meet Joe Black, Brad Pitt plays “Death” basically, and in the scene you will also see that he is sort of obfuscating himself in dealing with this person who is trying to con Anthony Hopkins's character out of his business. But long story short, I kept thinking of that line "Machinations so Machiavellian" and I thought of this after reading an article in the Bangkok Post print edition, under the title: Phumtham affirms anti-drug stance.

Well first of all, I wanted to get into to, what do you mean by anti-drug? This whole thing as we have discussed in other videos, some now call it a fortnight ago, three, four weeks ago, 18,000 businesses had licenses to sell a then legal product, Cannabis here in Thailand, which is still legal by the way, notwithstanding the fact that certain folks at the Ministry of Public Health have just unilaterally said we can do this, that, and the other thing without passing a law through Parliament, which they did say they were going to do some 18, 20 months ago and which is in my opinion and I believe generally accepted legal theory necessary to make things illegal in a Civil Law country under the Doctrine of Codification, you need to codify a law through Parliament, legislative due process not just, "because we say so, this is how it's going to be." That's not proper legal procedure. But never mind, Mr. Phumtham as we have discussed in other videos when told by the Council of State, you as acting Prime Minister don't have the authority to dissolve the House, just sort of said, "well that's just your opinion", and just sort of disregarded it. I have made videos on this because I have a real issue with this where we have an acting PM in lieu of a suspended Prime Minister who is suspended on a 9 to 0 opinion by the Constitutional Court that a case should be taken up for adjudication regarding her possibly inappropriate communications with a foreign potentate in the form of the President of the Senate over in Cambodia, and then that person is suspended on a 7-2 decision by the Constitutional Court by the way, suspended from Office pending full adjudication. Now we have this acting person that nobody voted for, is not on the Parliamentary slate that was put forward to the voters to select during their constituency selection during the last election, and we just got this guy and he seems to not particularly care about such things as legal due process which is probably in line with his history of political ideology, most notably being a Communist, as I have discussed another videos. And this Core Coalition Party seems enamoured with the World Economic Forum as they have had an envoy hosted at the Purple Room by the at the time not yet suspended Prime Minister. All of this leads me to believe that there are many machinations, very Machiavellian, going on within the halls of the Administrative State as I have called it in other videos. 

That said, getting into this article, quoting directly: "Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday affirmed the Government's commitment to combatting the spread of narcotics in the country." Well what does that mean? You have tried to conflate Cannabis which is legally defined as a Controlled Herb as a narcotic, and without any due legislative process of passing a law to call it that, just call it that. And when you read this article, and I urge those who are watching this video, maybe go online under the same headline and check it out on bangkokpost.com, but when you read this article it's all very vague. They don't specifically point out are we talking about Ice, meth? Are we talking about heroin? No, it's just this vague "narcotics", we are committed to going after "narcotics". Again, there are 18,000 licensed businesses here in Thailand that detrimentally relied on the Government licensing and set up businesses, spent money, put in time, resources, sweat equity, to set up companies. As I have discussed in another video, I have currently heard many folks telling me that lawsuits are in the works, I expect through the Administrative Courts here in Thailand, on this whole issue because it is not properly the way that they are doing it; it's arbitrary and capricious. It's not based on the Doctrine of Codification, they are not going through legislative due process and again this article it is all very, "oh, narcotics, this vague thing". Quoting further: "Before adding officials who are negligent and/or complicit in the illegal drug trade will face serious consequences." Well what is the illegal drug trade? What you say it is unilaterally, without legislative due process? It's just what you say it is. Because four weeks ago, selling Cannabis in your shop is perfectly fine, it remains so. As I have discussed in other videos, it has not being deemed a narcotic but it is just the Ministry of Public Health is just saying all kinds of things and making "announcements" but it's not based on an underlying law. 

Meanwhile, this is actually what caused me to think about making this video. Quoting further: "He called for local communities to support the government's effort to combat drug smuggling citing its benefits for the local economy.." And to be clear, just in my own position, I have got serious problems with drugs by the way. I don't want hard drugs. Again methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, that stuff destroys communities. I don't disagree with that, but again it seems like this current acting Prime Minister wants to conflate that with Cannabis which is something that not only was legal but was licensed by 18,000 operations here in Thailand. That said, quoting further and kind of getting over into just the broader general drift of politics here, or at least under this "acting Prime Minister", quote: "As long as our bureaucratic mechanisms aren't being exploited to commit crime, we can solve these problems," he said." Well aren't there currently allegations that you exploited bureaucratic mechanisms, notably the use of the DSI in this whole Senate thing I've discussed in a prior video. If you want to search that on our channel just type in Smoking Gun into the search function because I analogized what's going on there with the sort of Smoking Gun tapes associated with the Watergate investigation under Nixon. But I mean, machinations so Machiavellian just kept coming to my mind when reading this article. One, trying to conflate Cannabis in with narcotics it looks to me like is one thing that may be going on here. And the other thing is, as we have discussed in other videos, disregarding the Council of State regarding the parameters of the acting Prime Minister's prerogatives, most notably regarding dissolution of the House. The attempt to push in the Core Coalition Party what I would call now the “Rump” Coalition of this Government, basically bullied out the junior partner, the junior Coalition Party Bhumjaithai, who went into the opposition and that kind of happened surrounding also this phone call which also has its own ramifications with regard to appropriateness of a Prime Minister telling a foreign operator that, "oh well, whatever you want to do with the border is sort of okay; our own Field Commander is the "opponent", and all it this." That was all in my opinion, inappropriate on a whole other level. But then in the interim, when this person has been put in as the acting PM, and also now the Interior Minister as I brought up in one video, is that because they are trying to get land signed off for foreign ownership of casinos? Is it now, because they forced out the guy that is in charge of the Department of Provincial Administration, the oversight of that, even though he has a mandatory retirement in October, they moved him aside. What are they putting him in there for? As I have discussed in other videos, that's the administrative apparatus that, it's my understanding would have sort of a support function in putting on elections as we discussed in another video - I believe that was noted in Thai PBS World - and my question is here he is disregarding parameters regarding dissolution of the House and then forcing people or moving aside people in the Interior Ministry regarding Election Administration, talk about "the bureaucratic mechanisms exploited to commit crime"; I am not saying crimes are being committed but it all sort of in its totality is very concerning. What is going on here? 

And meanwhile, this is not an Administration anybody in the country in any way put votes up for. This is an acting PM, not somebody who is on the slate of folks - there is somebody from Phue Thai, the main Coalition Party, the Core Coalition party who could be put up - why not them? Why this? I don't know what the answer to all of these questions are, but we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.