Transcript of the above video:

So this video is kind of an interesting one, a little bit off pace from what we do but it is sort of weaved in and out between legal issues and then just sort of current events and then it kind of deals with the whole Cannabis issue here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com. Yet again the Examiner does a really thorough job in this article. I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for yourself.

I am going to quote an excerpt here from the article titled: Dispirited Prayut exits stage left after Chuwit addressed him by megaphone on new liberal cannabis policy. Lots going on in that article. I am not trying to get overly or in any way political using this channel, that is not the purpose, but I thought that this excerpt here could provide some insight into sort of the Emergency Decree, the aftermath of it and maybe even some insight as I see it as to the legal posture associated with where cannabis sits legally, regulatorily, all that good stuff. Quoting directly: "He asked how the Minister of Public Health, Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul could single-handedly bring about such a change in reference to the fact that the current revolutionary situation on marijuana policy, in place since June 2022 by Ministerial order without legislation in Parliament, has now seen over 14,000 Cannabis outlets opening up across Thailand leaving the coalition government except for the democrat party, which has fiercely opposed the development, facing a backlash from the public." First things first. We will see if there is a backlash. I am very curious whether or not there is really a "backlash" the way that they are describing or in sort of the hyperbolic terms that are being described sort of within the confines of this excerpt. Backlash to my mind might be too big of a word. I don't think anybody disagrees with the notion and I have said it here on this channel many times, this whole thing needs to be regulated and there was a Bill on regulation that was brought before the Parliament and it ended up dying in Parliament. It didn't go anywhere; not getting into all of that. 

The question posed is how was the Minister of Public Health able to do this? Well it was my understanding one) Minister of Public Health had that prerogative, but on top of that, this all still occurred back under the Emergency Decree which pertained to Public Health. So when cannabis was pulled from the narcotics list from the "list of what are considered narcotics" which we have discussed at length and even in other videos we discussed that even the Police kind of seem to want this, at least spokespeople from the Police here in Thailand because they don't view it as an issue that really requires the Police. It seems even drug enforcement would much rather deal with hard drugs that kill people as opposed to going after this particular product because at the end of the day, it is just not viewed at the same priority level. But it is my understanding that at the time this was all operating under emergency power which ended in October of '22 so it occurred during that time; there has been an intervening change insofar as that Emergency Decree is no longer in force, so we are back to status quo ante with this off the list which means under what I would call the Doctrine of Codification, or what is sometimes referred to as Positive Law or the lack thereof, there is no Positive Law illegalizing Cannabis in Thailand, it is therefore legal, that is the state of play at the moment. 

Now we are sitting here sort of in the middle of an election season and for that reason, again I don't like being political and don't really want to be under the circumstances, presumably after the election, however it falls, we are definitely going to get a much better sense of where all this sits both legally and regulatorily here in the Kingdom of Thailand.