Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Cannabis yet again. I didn't expect to make a video this soon but quite a bit has happened at least in the pages of the Bangkok Post. Just as a preface, sort of a tip of the hat to those folks over there. Yeah you guys are covering this pretty diligently. But we put up a video in the last week and we were talking about the possibility that things wouldn't be relisted, there was some pushback within the coalition and then shortly after that, shortly after we put up that video, they put out this article. Government 'united' despite weed policy U-turn. And after reading that first one, I will get into it in a minute, I thought about calling this video something along the lines of: Me thinks the Bangkok Post protests too much about unity, or something, because they seem to reiterate "unity", and I'll get into that in a moment. 

That being said, I thought this excerpt from that article was especially noteworthy. Quoting directly: "Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai insisted the Government is still united despite recent hiccups with the plan to relist Cannabis as a narcotic, adding that he already talked with Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul." As we discussed in a prior video that came out shortly before that article was published, we noted that the current Interior Minister, Khun Anutin had discussed the fact that there would be pushback on this issue to relist and that he thought folks should rethink this. We also discussed the fact that apparently the Prime Minister is still open to rethinking this. Again it is clearly not a foregone conclusion, it is still in discussion. That said, quoting further from that same article. I thought this was really interesting because we have seen just a lot of spurious information, ‘data’ points if you will - they are not even data points because they are erroneous - it was like the notion that 20 billion Baht had been spent by the hospital sector here in Thailand because of psychological cases involving Cannabis which was just to my mind a completely ridiculous sort of number, especially as we had seen numbers associated with foreigner deaths here in Thailand, how that impacts the hospital sector. We discussed that years back on this channel. 20 billion Baht was just an insane number and then other things - polling about when they said it didn't kill anybody then they started saying "oh it can drive people crazy", and they had various ‘data’ on that, that all seemed pretty spurious. But that said, again another data point which looks pretty solid to me counteracting sort of all of this, frankly static if you want to call it that or sort of just interference, or non-information. I hesitate to use misinformation, disinformation, I don't like that terminology but it's just not very good data. Then you counteract it with something like this, quoting directly, same article: "Meanwhile, the Medical Cannabis Academic Network led by Panthep Phuaphongphan, Dean of the College of Oriental Medicine at Rangsit University, submitted a letter to the NCB, saying that the data provided by the Public Health Ministry is inaccurate and misleading." So bear in mind, this is a serious academic is lodging this sort of letter if you will. Quoting further: "According to the letter, the Ministry's report showed a discrepancy of 800% - 2,100% compared with statistics from the National Health Security Office (NHSO)." So wow, interesting stuff there where an academic is pointing out an 800 - 2,100% discrepancy in terms of numbers! Again it seems like there is a lot of nonsense being rolled out and dressed up as reasoning for what it seems like a certain faction wants to do but the data doesn't really support the reasoning behind this stuff. Getting into that further, like I said I thought of making a video where I said, I was kind of going to play on I think it's Shakespearean, "me thinks the lady doth protest too much", sort of talking a little too much about 'unity' and again I have often wondered where the Bangkok Post stands on this; the article seemed a little bit negative. 

Well over the weekend, I came upon an opinion piece and the title of that is: Put weed plan on hold. Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com. This is a major piece in the Bangkok Post and I think it's really worth noting because there is a lot of good information in here and in my opinion, there is a lot of good reasoning in here. So quoting directly: "The Government, especially Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin, needs to immediately put on hold the plan to put Cannabis back on the narcotics list and engage in dialogue on the issue with all stakeholders." Yeah, I don't think that's unreasonable at all. Rather than to just say we are unilaterally by Fiat going to make this major change to law and policy. Yeah maybe talk to some of the people this is going to impact; that would be a good idea. Quoting further: "The decision to fast-track the re-criminalization of the herb is just arrogant, authoritative and willfully ignorant of the importance of public participation in such policy shifts. It has been almost 2 weeks since a group of Cannabis advocates known as Writing Thailand's Cannabis Future staged a demonstration in front of Government House. The group is demanding that the Government form a joint panel to scientifically study the adverse impact of Cannabis vis-a-vis tobacco and alcohol on users and society before deciding how to classify the herb." Yeah, great idea to actually, let's do a comparative study, a real academic, rigorous double-blind, whatever we have got to do to get as accurate a data as we can. Let's compare this stuff. What are the differences, the true differences to health and sort of your well-being from constant use maybe of Cannabis versus constant use of alcohol? Constant use of tobacco? Again, I find it fascinating that no one is making these same health arguments with regard to tobacco which is legal, or alcohol which is legal or the ever-present “recreational” use kind of chimera argument, which is Chimera at this point if you consider that nobody sits around asking about the “recreational” use of alcohol, it's silly. That said, quoting further: "They said they would agree with the relisting should it be proven that Cannabis has addictive properties akin to tobacco and alcohol." Again, I think that is a fair point. Quoting further: "If not, the herb should be legally regulated and controlled in a more measured way, they contend." Yeah this whole listing it as a narcotic is like using a mallet to go after a fly. I mean it's really overkill and quite honestly it's not a very good tool to get the policy objective done if you will. Quoting further: "Some Cannabis advocates have even accused the Government of having a hidden agenda. They argue that relisting Cannabis would favour Pharma giants which conduct medical research and rob the people of their right to use a medicinal herb that can potentially heal several illnesses and improve their quality of life -- especially for terminal-stage cancer patients. Two Cannabis advocates, Prasitchai Nunual and Akkaradetch Chakjinda, have been on a hunger strike since July 10 as their calls have fallen on deaf ears. The latter was even admitted to hospital." Yeah, serious stuff going on here with respect to that. I would like to point out, somebody in one of the comments in a prior video noted - and I don't want to take away the gravity of this situation - but it was kind of a worthy joke where they said: "it is a little funny that Cannabis advocates are on a hunger strike. It usually works the other way", but again I don't want to take away any of the gravity from it but to kind of deflate things a little bit or maybe bring some humour into it, I thought that was worth noting. Quoting further: "It is a pity that Mr. Somsak has thrown cold water on their demands arrogantly vowing to go ahead with re-criminalizing Cannabis no matter what. To back up his hasty plan, Mr. Somsak cited a survey showing what he described as "massive" and "unequivocal" support from the public for the move." Yeah, that was the thing where they just sort of rolled out a poll which we have no idea what the parameters of it are and how it was conducted and then just sort of said "well because we conducted this poll, we are now going to change this policy in a major and substantial way". Honestly, that's just nonsensical. Again, I have said this from the beginning, let's have Parliament do this. I mean and I'm tired of this "oh we are a couple of guys in a room and we can do it because we say so" logic too. Again, I get how it was delisted. We were operating under Emergency Powers then. We are not now. It's a totally different thing. Meanwhile we do have Parliamentary mechanisms in place to deal with this and this isn't an existential impending threat to anybody; it's not killing anybody; dogs and cats are not living together; there's not mass hysteria; society is not falling apart because this product exists on the market now. If anything, now that it is on the market, any move to relist it as we have discussed, will have tremendous negative economic impact. As we discussed in a video - I think it went out last week - we are talking about a 27 billion Baht hole that just immediately appears in the economy to say nothing of the indirect impact on the commercial real estate sector here in Thailand which has been a bright spot compared to the rest of the world whose commercial real estate sectors are collapsing, in real time in many cases because of changes to the market. Thailand now has this new product that requires a certain amount of commercial real estate to be utilized. Why not enjoy the benefit of that? I'm not understanding why this desire to just reverse all of that and sort of put us into a negative economic position. Quoting further: "Needless to say, the survey process is shrouded in mystery, suspicion and a clear bias against Cannabis by state agencies and some media. Policymakers need to make an informed decision based on well-balanced information." Yeah, that is well put. Well put, Bangkok Post. Quoting further: "Yesterday, Writing Thailand's Cannabis Future called off their protest campaign, and launched their own panel to conduct scientific studies. Quote: "The Government has refused to provide a mechanism for rational and scientific based discussion. So civic society has to launch its own," Mr Prasitchai said." Quoting further: "He insists anti-cannabis groups comprising parents and young people, as well as The Rural Doctor Society will be invited to join the study." Yeah, that was one where they said that hundreds of thousands of young people had come out against (corrected from ‘in favour’) Cannabis. Well were they compelled to sign this petition because they were in school for example as part of the decision to sign that petition? Again you have to wonder if a certain amount of pressure, or at least encouragement, was provided to make such petitions. But fine, if we are going to have a big meeting on this and get everybody's sort of opinion, yes please feel free to chime in. I get the thinking there. Quoting further: "Make no mistake, the previous Government erred in rushing to decriminalize Cannabis in the absence of proper regulations in 2022." Actually you are making a mistake because I have noted in other videos, it was legalized in 2022. It was just legalized via a mechanism that was somewhat unorthodox and unique, but it was legalized nonetheless. As we have discussed in other videos and yes, I'm a layman when it comes to Thailand but the basic notions of the Civil Law come into play with this whole thing and one of the basic notions is the Doctrine of Codification. Under the Civil Law something cannot be illegal unless you codify it as illegal, and that means you go through due legislative process to make that thing or that service or that whatever, illegal. You can't just do it on the fly; you can't just do unilaterally via "Ministerial Regulations", a basically "because we say so" approach. No, you have to go through due legislative process to make something illegal. That is sort of the way the Civil Law System as supposed to the Common Law System maintains liberty within their legal system. Quoting further: "That resulted in a myriad of abuses like underage consumption that has wrongly intensified the stigma against the herb." Well one, I think there has been a massive exaggeration in the media of this "underage" consumption. And as I have said in other videos, make it a criminal offense to sell to kids. I've got no problem with that. Do that. I don't think any reasonable person in the Cannabis space wants this to be in the hands of children. What are you talking about? That is such a non-argument. 

In any event, quoting further: "But no matter what the problems are, this herb is not the monster some are making it out to be." Yeah exactly, I agree. Quoting further: "The Government should know it has come too far to reverse things now." Well yeah, again that goes back to the economic argument where what, we're just going to literally like with an ice cream scoop just dig out 27 billion Baht out of our economy at a time when the global economy is precarious? Now I would argue Thailand's economy is far better than some are saying it is because I think that some are trying to build the narrative for their own political purposes that Thailand is in a sort of slump economically. Certain aspects of Thailand's economy are not doing as well as they once or but as we noted in prior videos, the first quarter of this year was doing record numbers and consumer spending was way up. I have made the argument that there is something to be said for the notion that consumer spending may have been way up and tourism may have been way up because of Cannabis, because of that attracting folks into this market. That being said, yeah again, we have come too far and we are in an economically precarious situation. Does anyone think it's a good idea to just knock a 30 billion Baht hole in the economy right now, intentionally? On something that again when you do the cost-benefit analysis of it, it could be better for the country then alcohol or tobacco and yet we are just going to unilaterally illegalize it again, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Quoting further: "This herb, if well handled, can be a major cash crop and, as several advocates have insisted, it gives the public a certain degree of independence on matters of health." Well yeah absolutely. I mean and really at the end of the day, where is the exigent need for the Government to be so involved in this, at the end of the day? In any event, quoting further: "Moreover there are signs that some Cabinet Ministers have distanced themselves from the move to relist Cannabis as a narcotic." We have discussed that somewhat. I think maybe the momentum behind that is even continuing. Quoting further: "By pushing it further, the Government could face a rift. It would be wise for Mr. Somsak to think carefully and seek dialogue before making another mistaken move." You know I do have to say Bangkok Post, again tip of the hat for you folks. I thought that was a very thoughtful editorial. I didn't agree with every little bit of it but I think the overall logic is sound.

We sort of are where we are at this point with regard to Cannabis and I think that there is a way to move forward that is both beneficial to the country and operates within the parameters of the way Thailand views the making of law and policy. But long story short, to just rashly change this could have a detrimental impact not only on the country as a whole, but also deeply detrimental impact on the economy which right now nobody really needs that kind of problem, at least in my opinion.