Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis in Thailand. Many people have asked me "why do you keep talking about this?" Well it's huge news here. It is arguably, it's definitely one of the biggest pieces of legal news in Thailand at the moment. It's a huge sea change from Thai policy up to this year. It is really fundamental. I know it kind of seems silly because everybody thinks oh it is the 'wacky tabacki', whatever, they are thinking along those lines but it's designed for medicinal purpose and at the end of the day, just the legal ramifications of all this, these are huge changes. We have been commenting on them and this has been kind of an evolving thing over roughly the past 4 years but I can't stress enough that really this stuff coming to a head the last few months, it has pretty fundamentally changed the legal landscape in many ways here in Thailand. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Guardian, that is theguardian.com, the article is titled: "Very good for tourists": Thailand aims for high season with U-turn on cannabis. This excerpt in here I thought was, honestly of everything I have read about in the Press and discussing it with my colleagues here in the firm, this excerpt and I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article in detail, a lot of information in there, good information, interesting information but this excerpt I thought kind of put a fine point on kind of where things stand regarding criminal liability. Quoting directly: "Recreational use of Cannabis is discouraged, with officials warning that anyone caught smoking Cannabis in public could be charged with creating a public "smell nuisance" under the Public Health Act and face a 25,000 (£580) Baht fine and 3 months imprisonment. But on the beaches of Koh Samui the law seems rather more open to interpretation." Yeah that's really, I mean nuisance is probably, as we discussed in other videos going back a couple of weeks now or maybe it is a couple months, the one specifically I'm thinking of and I'll try to get the link and put it in the description below, the one specific video I am thinking of was 'the Dude abides, keep it inside'. We made that video where we kind of compared what appeared to be the Thai Police policy or paradigm on this overall issue and we compared it actually to the Seattle police back in the United States that when this all first came up in Seattle they took a very similar stance. When it got decriminalized they basically said "hey look we're not going out looking for this, this isn't a priority." As the Ministry of Justice has said here, this isn't a priority any longer, we want to go after hard drugs and on a personal note I think that's a great idea and they basically said, in Seattle they said "the Dude abides" keep it inside". Just stay indoors, we are not coming to people's houses. The Thai police said basically the same thing and as we have noted in other videos and cited it, they have also said "look there's no criminal law on this anymore so there's really not a clear police citation that we are going to be looking to hand out." Now that said, again if you are in a public space they don't want to see folks smoking it and ingesting it and doing all that kind of stuff; that's kind of frowned upon. Again different places in Thailand, as they say in obscenity law back in the United States there are contemporary community standards. Different places may have slightly different communities standards on these issues but if you are a foreigner in Thailand, "the Dude abides, keep it inside". Be careful, this isn't something to flout, this isn't something to really get in people's face about. It is a bit controversial here at the moment politically. I think in the longer run I think the momentum is clearly behind the policy for a bunch of different reasons, economically most notably I think is probably one of the major reasons this will probably gain even more momentum but at the end of the day especially if you are a foreigner coming over to Thailand, whatever you are doing in private, the privacy of your own domicile, whatever, the police are not out roaming the streets looking for you. No, that is not the case but be smart. Don't be out trying to do things that are flouting Thai Nuisance Laws.