Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing “Ministry is boasting of destroying 16,000 businesses?” This isn't hyperbole; this is really concerning stuff. That said, let me get into it. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand's Cannabis 'clinic' transformation explained. 

I have done a lot of background on this in other videos, but long story short and as discussed, two weeks ago as of the time of this video, none of these rules applied and then the Public Health Minister just sort of unilaterally said, "oh, because I say so, I'm coming down with all of this stuff" and that's literally what is going on. There has been no Law passed through Parliament; I'll get into further analysis on that in a minute. Quoting further: "Only 2,000 of the estimated 18,000 Cannabis shops in Thailand will be left once authorities complete their plan to convert the dispensaries to clinics with resident doctors, a Ministry of Public Health official said on Tuesday." Is that a boast? And seriously, are you boasting about the fact you are going to destroy 16,000 businesses that people relied on their license, and it's not like these people just went out and set up. These are people that went out and affirmatively got licensed by the Thai Government and you are just saying, "yeah no, we are just going to destroy them, and there are only going to be 2,000 left." I have a real question. Isn't there an affirmative right associated with the license? Once the license is issued, that's the point of a license. You now have a license; you have a right to do something business-wise. I'm really curious if we are going to start seeing the courts get clogged up with cases involving these people that are like, "hey, where did all of these rules come from?  What Law are they based on?" I've gone through the analysis on that. And where do you get the right to tell us what we can and cannot do, when we have already gone out and been affirmatively licensed to do what we are doing? Quoting further: "Most of the shops now operating in the country will not be able to meet the strict new requirements.." and again, this is all sort of touted like it's based on some sort of legislative due process. No, they just made this up out of whole cloth a couple of weeks ago. That's it! There is no Law passed through Parliament. It's just them saying, "oh well we say so!" This would be like them unilaterally creating a Thailand Florist Commission and saying, "oh you can't have any flowers that have ever touched soil, they all have to come from potted growth systems" or something, just something arbitrary and capricious like that out of nowhere, and it's even worse than that frankly, because the people that have been operating these businesses had gone and gotten licenses from the Government to do that. And now that same Government is turning around and destroying them after they detrimentally relied on that license to thereby invest time, money and resources into their businesses. Quoting further: "..said Dr. Somlerk Jeungsmarn, Chief of the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine. The Ministry is moving ahead quickly with new restrictions.." - again, new restrictions based on what? On what Law? -  "..to ensure that only medical use of Cannabis will be allowed.." - and again why? Because you say so? I love how it has all been sort of framed in this dialectic, oh, recreational use is so terrible me and while there's medical and “recreational” use of alcohol, and I don't see anybody going after that with this kind of fervour. And bear in mind, how many more people does alcohol kill than Cannabis? And point to me the numbers of people that Cannabis has affirmatively killed? Not hyperbole, about "oh, somebody had some once and got really crazy on it." Well yeah, it has an effect on people. Yeah we know that. Is it killing people? Well not really, frankly not at all in a meaningful sense. - Quoting further: "..backed by standardized prescriptions.." - again based on what? - quoting further: "The transformation is expected to be completed by the end of this year, said Dr. Thanakrit Jit-areerat, an assistant to Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin. He was responding to concerns expressed by cannabis advocacy networks" - yeah, you mean people that went and got licensed and set up their businesses and spent money doing that and invested time and money and had leases and all the other knock-on things you have to do to have a business. And by the way, do any of you people making these rules think of that? Because you work in Government. You show up every day from 9.00 - 5.00 or 8.00 to 5.00 or whenever you show up, and you get a cheque no matter what. These are people that went out and set up businesses on their own accord, invested their own money, put it into these businesses and had to take the risk in the business world of operating, and now you are going to come in and cut the legs out from underneath 16,000 of them. Apropos again of what Law? Passed under what legislative due process? Quoting further: "..saying Cannabis usage has increased tenfold to 1.5 million users..." Yeah, that happens when you legalize something. And by the way, again how many have died? Maybe the thumbnail in this should be did you die from that, from The Hangover 2, whatever, "but yeah did you die?" Kind of thing. Quoting further: "...since it was decriminalized".. again, decriminalized is a nonsense word. It was legalized. Folks, detractors, whatever, may not like that fact, but that is what occurred. It was legalized. Quoting further: ".. in June of 2022, prompting new control measures." And this is where it gets into this whole backwards logic of this. Quoting further: "Decriminalization" (again erroneous terminology) "took place in the absence of a Law to regulate Cannabis.." No, No. That just contravenes the basic notions of Civil Law. Civil Law dictates that unless you make a Law through affective due process to illegalize something, it is legal. You have the liberty to do it. The default position is liberty; the default position is not restriction. 

Now again, Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul had emergency powers and during the time at the very tail end of his emergency powers stemming from the “so-called “COVID emergency which I won't even get into that, but at the end of that, he utilized that and pulled Cannabis from the Narcotics List. Those emergency powers extinguished with the end of the Emergency Decree, and therefore Cannabis was sitting there legal. That's it, that is all, that's the analysis. It was legal. So in order to make it illegal pursuant to the Doctrine of Codification - one of the main pillars of a Civil Law System - you need to go through Parliament and pass a Law to illegalize it. Not, oh well the default is it was restricted. No, that's not how it works. I am really tired of this. This is the biggest issue underlying this is this notion that "oh we can do it because we say so" and they never passed an affirmative law, therefore we are going to do this in it's absence. No it works the other way around. Thais have the inherent liberty to do it unless you pass the Law through Parliament that says they can't. Quoting again: "Decriminalization took place in the absence of a Law to regulate Cannabis," - again nonsense - "leading to an explosion in recreational use." Again where is all of the Pearl clutching over recreational use of alcohol? Quoting further: "But advocates have questioned how authorities expect to restructure the billion-baht business in practical terms - multi-baht business in practical terms." Again it doesn't even come down to that. Where do they get the authority to say any of this, and enforce any of this? Again, "we say so!" You didn't pass a law through Parliament. By the way, it's not like you didn't say you would. We have had this discussion already, and everybody agreed, yeah we should put it through Parliament. It's just you never did, and now your "majority" which I have serious questions about is "razor-thin" and so now you are just trying to do this because you say so. And I'm asking why? One, are you trying to do it because you want to destroy 16,000 businesses of Thai people who invested their time and resources? Little Thai people by the way. These are not like, this isn't Pablo Escobar rolling in off some boat, okay? This is just little Thais who set up little shops to sell this stuff. Quoting further: "The Controlled Herbs Announcement issued on June 26, requires anyone wanting Cannabis for Medical use to obtain a prescription from a licensed member of one of seven authorized medical professions." Again, where's the underlying Law to require that? You are just saying it. Quoting further: "Shops must use the standard Phor Thor 33 prescription form, the same one approved for all health providers nationwide" - again whoever said Cannabis falls under that rubric? And by the way, they already received licenses which didn't have these rules attached to them. So where is the due process for adding the rules on? Quoting further: ".. and submit monthly sales and prescription records.." - again tons of paperwork. I don't mind tax. If you want to throw an excise tax on all this stuff, that makes a lot of sense to me. Just, you can go through the supply chain and figure out a place to add an excise tax on. We do it with alcohol; it can be done. But a bunch of paperwork on these places to just what? To drive them out of business?

And meanwhile, as I have discussed in other videos, what is this going to do to the real estate sector here in Thailand at a time when the global real estate sector, and especially in commercial and especially in retail is going in the toilet? What is it going to look like 6 months from now, if you are successful in killing these 16,000 businesses? What are the streets going to look like when every third shop is boarded up instead of having neon lights that look happy, and everything looks good which was buoying the real estate sector here in Thailand. Quoting further: "The Ministry is also exploring ways to integrate telemedicine in order to improve access to doctors for people seeking Cannabis prescriptions, he said." Yet again, just like in the COVID thing. All this Zoom talks and everything is going to be digitized. How much real Hands-On medical diagnostics are going to be done over Zoom? I question the genuineness of the desire of having these doctors involved if there's going to be all this Zoom associated with it. It just sounds like nonsense to me. I don't understand why Thais’ own government seems hell bent on destroying their own businesses that by the way they have got to go and get licenses, and pay taxes and do stuff on these companies, but no, we're going to go destroy 16,000 of them. And for what?