Revenge of the Thaksin
r/CannabisThailand Newsletter - Issue #103
Sawadee Everyone,
The experience of combat as often been described as hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer chaos. That seems to be true of the cannabis situation in Thailand.
After months of absolute silence since former PM Srettha was shown the door, suddenly weed is in the news again with the Minister of Public Health, Somsak Thepsutin, declaring that new rules would be forthcoming.
Most information coming out of the process at the moment seems to indicate that:
Some sort of medical card or prescription will be required to purchase cannabis
There will be a lot more scrutiny put on growers both in terms of quality and making sure less weed ends up being exported illegally
All in all, nothing crazy this time around. However, it remains to be seen how the medical card or prescription will work. For instance, does Thailand even have enough Thai traditional medicine doctors to meet tourist demand?
According to sources I could find, there are only 30,000 Thai traditional medicine doctors in all of Thailand. There are another 70,000 or so medical physicians but it’s not like the entire medical establishment is going to stop everything and focus on writing weed scripts.
Let’s say 10% of Thai traditional medicine doctors focus on cannabis, that’s 3,000 doctors and there are over 7,000 dispensaries.
And what is to keep the doctors from bullying smaller dispensaries for their own financial gain? For instance, let’s say a Thai traditional medicine doctor decides to offer prescriptions via his cousin’s dispensary but either refuses to write prescriptions for competitors or they apply a higher standard for qualifying conditions. Or what would keep a Thai traditional doctor from simply refusing to fill prescriptions for other dispensary customers and opening his own dispensary/clinic?
This is less of a concern in bigger markets like Bangkok but unless there is fair access to a system that can’t be rigged against small shops, this could end up causing a major upheaval making it impossible for smaller shops to compete.
But we’ll have to see all that shakes out after the public hearing period and then seeing what final laws come out of it.
One thing seems certain though, this time they plan on putting criminal penalties behind the laws. Up until now, most of the laws being applied to cannabis have been a hodgepodge of other laws meant for different purposes and many of those rules have no real bite.
For instance, at the moment, the government can only really fine dispensaries for violating the law. The new laws will give it the power to shut them down and potentially to arrest and charge owners and staff.
I’ve seen some mentions by the Thai police indicating that this is the reason why there has been almost zero enforcement of what laws do exist. What’s the point of arresting someone if there’s no penalty for the crime?
This will bring a new era of Thai police involvement in the cannabis business. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen.
But, maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
I’ve written a few times that no Shinawatra has ever left the prime ministership voluntarily. Well, we may be headed down that path again so the big question is, will the Shinawatras still be in power by the end of 2025 to enact any cannabis laws?
I could probably fill a few pages with the various ways former PM Thaksin has broken with protocol since he returned but let’s just focus on what may see him behind bars.
First, it’s hard to ignore the signal that was sent as Thaksin’s sister, former PM Yingluck, was told she was responsible for over 10 billion in damages due to her rice scheme (since revised downward . . . but only a bit). Apparently she doesn’t have to pay it all back herself but if the Shinawatras were hoping for a sign that they could just keep plowing ahead with their agenda, that came to a screeching halt this week.
Thaksin is currently in two legal crosshairs, his stay at the hospital instead of prison and speaking ill of the monarchy several years ago.
Three of the doctors who were behind Thaksin’s move to the hospital from prison have been punished. Two have been stripped of their license to practice medicine and the third received a formal reprimand.
The decision to overrule the disciplinary board that punished the doctors was made by Pheu Thai member and Minister of Public Health, Somsak. Already, Thai doctors are rebelling against the Minister of Public Health. Dr. Prayong Temchawala has called on doctors across Thailand to sign a petition to remove Somsak from his office. Meanwhile 45 doctors at Chulalongkorn University have also called for Somsak’s resignation.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Thaksin has political problems as well. Several of Thaksin’s old allies are saying he should serve his jail time. And of particular concern, former bitter enemies, Sondhi Limthongkul and Jatuporn Prompan, have joined together to oppose Thaksin. Sondhi had led the anti-Thaksin movement and Jatuporn had been a Red Shirt leader supporter of Thaksin. Now they both want him out of Thai politics.
And while all of this is going on, Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai have been at each other’s throats since they teamed up. There are several conversations going on about how Pheu Thai might kick Bhumjaithai out of the coalition and find a bunch of smaller parties to make up the votes. But after every news story about the conflict between the two, they both say they love each other and there’s no rift between them.
However, now the press has been pointing out that Bhumhaithai seems to be friendly with People’s Party recently. People’s Party was the party with the most votes (when they were previously named Move Forward) but they exhausted their prime minister candidates. This time around they could partner with someone like Bhumjaithai which would give Bhumjaithai the prime ministership since People’s Party has no PM candidate.
Thanaporn Sriyakul, director of the Political and Public Policy Analysis Institute speculated that as crazy as it sounds, People Party and Bhumjaithai might partner. People’s Party can’t really do anything from the opposition so this could be an opportunity for them to get back in the game.
And for anyone who thinks there’s no way the two of them get together, Thanaporn points out that the hatred of what Thaksin is doing is strong enough to bring mortal enemies Sondhi and Jatuporn on stage hugging, so why not Bhumjaithai and People’s Party. People’s Party could sell this to their supporters as the only option to rid Thailand of the Shinawatras.
If that isn’t bad enough for Thaksin, all is not good for Thailand in general and that may also lead to an early exit for the Shinawatras. Tourism down, exports down, manufacturing down, etc.
It was a huge wakeup call for Thailand when it was recently announced that while tourism in Thailand was faltering, record numbers in surrounding countries means people are specifically skipping Thailand as a tourist destination.
And that comes on the heels of the government being served up several big losses on their big casino project which the government was hoping would help turn around tourism. The public has been overwhelmingly against the casino projects and the list of experts that have come out against it grows larger by the day. Even if Pheu Thai wins and gets their casino, they lose in the court of public opinion.
Pheu Thai has also recently announced that due to economic uncertainty that they are cancelling the 10,000 baht handout.
This has lead to several Thai media outlets to speculate if an early departure for the prime minister might be coming. Various outlets have been dancing around the subject but nobody is saying the “C” word (coup) just quite yet. For now the focus has been on a cabinet reshuffle, whether or not Bhumjaithai will get kicked out of the coalition government, etc.
Thai politics never stays dull for too long.
Stay lifted and enlightened,
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