Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Donald Trump's recent announcements with regard to Cannabis Policy in the United States and just my sort of analysis that this is not quite what people think it is, or at least what I've seen certain folks in sort of the Press and across the ether of the internet who are covering this. It's being covered and hailed as sort of like "oh, a big day for Cannabis sort of legalization or decriminalization” - I always hate that word decriminalization. But what Trump has actually done is he has de-categorized Cannabis from the list of Narcotics Category I, down to Category III. And basically takes it off the list with like methamphetamine and heroin and pulls it down with Tylenol 3. It is about where it probably ought to be. My personal opinion is all this stuff should just be legal and it should be regulated much like alcohol, that's my personal opinion, but the US is still moving through this rubric of "medicine" which I have my serious questions about whether or not they're really being genuine in their thought that this is all medicinal rather than it's a byproduct of the lobbying efforts of the pharmaceutical complex to keep Cannabis from being within ready access of the public. Because the moment it is, much like here in Thailand, there are going to be major changes to people's habits. For example alcohol. I think the alcohol business has come after Cannabis hard in Thailand because it's eating into their business. People who go and partake of Cannabis aren't necessarily all that interested in going and drinking drinks. I discussed this, well I didn't actually discuss this in a video if I recall, but I remember going back into the early days of legalization here - so back into like '16, '17 when they were still doing the research under the military government - but New York if I recall had legalized, maybe this was 1920, something like this, but New York was talking about how they were actually seeing bars with Cannabis extract being used to make the cocktails and people were preferring that because they didn't get hangovers.

It's an interesting development here this Cannabis thing. But long story short, Trump's announcement, people have sort of put it out there as okay this is the end of the Cannabis issue when it comes to legalization. It's not really quite there. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Trump signs order to ease Cannabis limits in industry win. Quoting directly: "Trump's directive does not legalize marijuana nationwide, nor does it take effect immediately." Yeah, this is really important. There's a whole bureaucracy in America that's not overly conducive to the notion of not only legalized Cannabis, let alone that, but any kind of tampering with it for it being de-categorized, or having it categorized or changed in categorization from Category I to Category III. Quoting further: "The Executive Order instructs agencies to restart a formal rule-making process led by The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services that has been paused since January."

Yeah, I can only describe that as bureaucratic pushback. In January we were still dealing with Biden; he was still President until the middle of that month - and there are some questions as to how much he was actively President or President in name only - and to their credit though, the Biden Administration was somewhat open to the notion of Cannabis, but nothing ever came of it because again the bureaucracy did things like pause the initiative to go through the formal rule-making process back in January. And now here we are sitting here in December, nearly a full year later, and Trump has sort of basically re-initiated or restarted that "formal rulemaking process". That said, quoting further: "That would effectively kickstart a process begun under former President Joe Biden in 2022, when he asked the HHS Secretary and US Attorney General to review the federal classification of marijuana. The Justice Department later recommended moving the drug to Schedule III" - and again this is key, - "prompting a formal review at the DEA." So that means the DEA wanted to put the brakes on this thing, and so they went through a "formal review" process. Quoting further: "That effort, however, became mired in legal challenges and "agency delays". Quoting further: "US regulation of Cannabis is currently a patchwork of differing rules across the 50 states. About half the states allow it for recreational use according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than 40 States and the District of Columbia allow marijuana use for medical purposes." 

And meanwhile the Feds are just saying, "no, we think it's illegal." It's nonsense. I mean it's a massive overreach in my opinion with regard to Federal Authority. Yeah, in terms of the Interstate Commerce Clause, if you're moving it between states, yeah, I think the Feds have some oversight, but for the Feds to say that they say it's illegal even though the two states for example that might see transshipment between their jurisdictions say it's legal, in my opinion, the Constitution is clear. The state's authority overrides that of the Feds. That being said, that's Constitutional philosophy and legal thinking and in our system, it has to be presumptively processed through the Courts if somebody is found to be in violation of one of these Federal Laws. And then maybe you'll get into that analysis, and it may not work to your favour because the Courts have been happy over time, with some exceptions most notably under the Rehnquist Court, to just allow almost unfettered expansion of the Interstate Commerce powers inherent in the enumerated powers of the US Constitution. 

So this is a good thing overall but recognize it for what it is. It's one more step in a long slog to get this industry where it effectively already is here in Cambodia at this time - (excuse me, Cambodia) - here in Thailand at this time. That said, it remains to be seen how this is going to plays out. I'll be keeping track of Cannabis news both in Thailand and regional Southeast Asia where it comes up, as well as the United States moving forward. So please feel free to stay tuned to this channel as we keep track of this evolving situation sort of in real time.