r/CannabisThailand Newsletter - Issue #62

Sep 10, 2023

Sawadee Everyone,

With politics being relatively silent this week I thought it might be a good time to take a look summarize where things are at currently.

First off, Bhumjaithai, the party that was responsible for legalizing cannabis, has found a spot in the Pheu Thai government.

While Anutin will be serving as Minister of the Interior rather than as the Minister of Public Health (his role in the last government), it’s expected that he’ll wield great power from the Interior role.

Not only having been the key political party to help Pheu Thai (PT) form a government but the Minister of the Interior has a broad portfolio of responsibilities which makes the role second only to the PM in terms of importance.

Probably the two biggest jobs of the ministry are keeping the provincial governors in line as well as overseeing all public works projects.

So while Anutin isn’t in a role that will directly impact cannabis, he’s in a very influential role that requires his approval for many things which makes his support very important to anyone that needs something from the central government.

Last week he told the incoming Minister of Public Health not to change anything about cannabis. He has no authority over the Minister of Public Health but the message was clear, he’s going to keep pushing cannabis and he expects the Minister of Public Health’s support, or at least to stay out of his way.

As I mentioned in a previous newsletter issue, despite all of the grandstanding, it seems like most of the opposition to cannabis from PT and Move Forward (MFP) was mostly for show.

Now PT will feel the need to pass some sort of cannabis bill so they can announce, Tada! they fixed all of the problems with the misuse of cannabis and now it will only be used for medical purposes.

But in politics, appearances are often more important than actual deeds, so they’re not likely to be as concerned with what is in the bill as they will be with being able to declare a victory for their constituents.

In other words, BJT will probably draft the bill, it will likely be very similar to the same bill that was rejected in Aug 2022, and it will pass with PT and BJT smiling and both declaring they’ve kept their promises to the Thai people.

I should point out that many people have raised the concern that Thaksin has returned to Thailand, will be out of jail, presumably, in a year or less, and the last time he was in power he was believed to be responsible for the deaths of about 3,000 people under his Duterte-style drug war.

I would counter that by saying that Thaksin’s drug war was mostly about meth/yaba and had little or nothing to do with cannabis.

Prior to legalization last year there were two or three incidents just prior to legalization where police arrested older Thai people growing cannabis for personal medicine or for cooking. In once incident the local neighbors ganged up on the cops to prevent them from arresting the older lady for growing cannabis.

There are many Thais that respect cannabis as a medicine and while they may object to their children ripping bong hits before school, they don’t want grandma to get shot for growing some weed for her boat noodle soup.

In contrast, yaba has never had any positives associated with it in Thailand.

It just doesn’t seem likely that Thaksin will use his remaining years on this planet (he’s 71) to launch another drug war specifically on cannabis.

Not that any drug war or killing is acceptable but it’s simply not in his best interests and given the thousands of dispensaries, farms, and tens of thousands of people employed in the cannabis business, a drug war on cannabis just seems too farfetched even for Thaksin.

The big question in all of this is timing. When will a new bill be drafted and submitted? When will new regulations come into place?

Now, the million-dollar question: When's the next act in this political drama? Stay tuned, because we’re all ears (and eyes).

Cheers,

u/CannabisThailandMod

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