Transcript of the above video: 

Buckle up folks; this is kind of one of my ranting videos. I wasn't even thinking of making this video until - let's just jump in - until I read from the recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, an excerpt from the article: Thailand's Cannabis U-turn is a cautionary tale. First things first. This whole lotion of a U-turn, that it is some sort of foregone conclusion and that this is just happening, that's not what is going on here, okay? This is under fairly intense debate I would argue, in certain circles but at the end of the day, this hyperbole that “everything is just going to come to an end; we are just U-turning on this issue and it is just going back to the way it was!" Sorry at the end of the day, as a practical matter, it's just not going to work out that way. Also how this ends up from a legal standpoint remains to be seen and I think ultimately we are probably going to see actual legislation on this, which is what we should have had quite a long time ago. And the very people that say that we need regulation, are the people that stymied it in the past. In any event, no point getting into that. 

I thought of making this video specifically after reading this excerpt. Quoting directly: "The Prime Minister's announcement shouldn't come as a surprise. The new Government has been weighing its options for a while. The weed experiment hasn't gone as planned. Rolling it back won't be easy, but the Kingdom should persevere and attempt to regulate this sector." And that's the thing. It's like talking out of two sides of a mouth when they keep talking about regulation, and then they say, "we want to illegalize everything." Well those are different things! Quoting further: "Even if the consequences are painful", and I like how - this is somebody writing about this and just saying - "oh even if the consequences are painful!" - are you the person that built a business and is going to watch it be swept away? Quoting further: "Ignoring it will affect the nation's youth and social harmony." Youth and social! “Oh but the children! Ohhhh!” How long have we been hearing that?  Yes, yes, children should not go anywhere near this stuff. That is why there is an age limit for purchasing it; that is why they check IDs in these stores and you have to be 20 to buy the stuff. It just is what it is. I have said it myself. They should pass legislation that said "if you sell this stuff to a child, you are doing some time", because you should. Quoting further: "Ultimately, the industry is only benefiting businesses not core farmers." Well yeah, it's probably true that there's something of a glut in the Cannabis Industry or in the farming sector because everybody all at once started growing it at the same time. Regulation would help that; it would help with the issue of oversupply and a glut in the economy. 

Now that being said, it's just the tone of basically the overall article. And I urge those who are watching this video, go read that but that one excerpt just got to me because I started thinking of COVID, and how many times has the media in the last five years, since 2020 - and I'm not picking on Bangkok Post specifically, but just across the board - has given the public inaccurate information; has steered them towards things that are not in their interest in many situations, I'm not going to get specific here, but we all know what I am talking about. At the end of the day, there was a lot of media hyperbole they got everybody all freaked out and worked up over something that quite honestly was heavily exaggerated to say the least, and then they said that experimental protocols were perfectly okay for people to undertake, notwithstanding the fact that that really wasn't the case, okay. And I see the same methodology being used in this weird attempt to stifle the Cannabis Industry here in Thailand. I don't know, and I don't know who. I have said it before and I will say it again, I have to imagine Big Alcohol, Big Pharma are not thrilled about Cannabis and you have got to wonder - they have deep pockets - are they able to perhaps finance sort of a dispute with regard to that issue, especially within the media? 

But again my question really at this point to anybody in the media is this, “what are you doing to all of us here?” Really, we've all walked away from this COVID thing and tried to pretend it didn't happen and there's an element of that I am okay with, but when you start using the same methodology to clearly operate adversely to the interest of the Thai public, that's where I really lose it. And I don't understand, again like the title suggests "why do you want to be hand maidens totalitarian bureaucracy?"