Transcript of the above video: 

The title of this video talks about Cannabis and same-sex marriage and gay marriage here in Thailand. I want to be clear, the actual thrust of this video is not going to really be much into the substantive issues of either of those particularly referenced topics. It's more the difference between "decriminalized" and "legalized." What am I talking about here? 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand moves closer to legalizing casinos to prop up tourism. That was an interesting title unto itself. Again, the thrust of this article goes in a very different direction. I'm going to talk about it from just this one excerpt's standpoint. Quoting directly: "In 2022 Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize Cannabis and is on course to become the first in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage." Let's be clear. They're both legalized. Actually same-sex marriage is in the process, we're still promulgating law on that but Thailand, again as we have discussed procedurally, Anutin Charnvirakul when he was the Head of the Ministry of Public Health, he specifically pulled this under the Emergency Decree, he pulled Cannabis off the narcotics list. As a result, pursuant to the Doctrine of Codification as I understand it in a Civil Law context, you have to specifically write a law to make something illegal or write a law in such a way that precludes someone or precludes a certain activity, function, whatever, that precludes something in order for it to be illegal. 

So for example, marriage up to this point has always been defined as between a man and a woman. So same sex marriage was not legal because under Codified Law, it needed to be between a man and a woman. Now they are legalizing same-sex marriage but I think it's funny that the media does not use the word "legalize" when talking about Cannabis; they talk about "decriminalize" which is a nonsense word. Something is either illegal or it is not and for something to be “decriminalized” means the police have just chose to not enforce the law against it. In this case, what happened albeit through sort of a procedural, let's call it through an unorthodox procedural mechanism, the Minister of Public Health at the time was able to delist Cannabis as a narcotic, thereby, pursuant to the Doctrine of Codification making it legal in Thailand. So I find it on the one hand, I can see where for example a body like the Bangkok Post or an organ like the Bangkok Post would say "well we are going through the Parliamentary process to legalize same-sex marriage, so we'll use that phrase." In this other thing it's a little more nebulous, in my opinion it's not nebulous at all but I can see how a lay person might think it is, a lay person in any context by the way, I am a lay person when it comes to Thai Law insofar as I'm not a Thai Attorney, I have never claimed to be one, but again I have a JD and I have engaged in Comparative Law for going on two decades now and long story short it's my understanding the Doctrine of Codification - something is either explicitly illegal pursuant to promulgated law or it is not - and if it's not specifically noted as being illegal in the law then it is not presumed to being illegal. 

So the thing to take away from this video and understand is or what I am trying to convey in this is I haven't loved the way the media will on certain things say "oh this is legalized", but on other things they will say "it is decriminalized". Which again, these are semantic points but they are semantic points to be made because it does look to me or has looked me like under certain circumstances, there have been certain nudges one way or the other with regard to the public's perception of what the posture of different issues are here in Thailand from a legal perspective.