The Next Phase of the Fight
r/CannabisThailand Newsletter - Issue #97
Sawadee Everyone,
You may have noticed I took some time off recently. I just felt like there wasn’t anything new to talk about and the weekly updates were beginning to feel too forced.
I really enjoy writing these updates when there’s something to update people about but I find it difficult to get excited about saying, “Well, not much has changed this week.” LOL.
However, it does appear that we’ve seen some significant movement recently so let’s jump in . . .
Minister of the Interior, and cannabis community hero (at least for now), Anutin, announced that he had spoken with Thaksin and Srettha and they had agreed to take a regulation approach rather than prohibition.
But before we look forward, I want to take a quick look back. In the May 27 newsletter I listed Anutin and Thaksin burying the hatchet as a potential outcome:
Thaksin is forced to negotiate with Bhumjaithai for something he wants like getting Yingluck back, BJT staying in the coalition so as to avoid Pheu Thai losing control, the digital wallet scheme, etc.
And I put this outcome on equal footing with Pheu Thai losing control of the government (which also still may happen) in terms of likelihood:
The most realistic scenarios are Pheu Thai losing control of the government and Thaksin being forced to negotiate.
That is why I tend to lean into the politics as much as I do in this newsletter. The cannabis community’s best options are tied to Pheu Thai or Thaksin playing themselves into a bad political position over something not cannabis related where they either lose control or are forced to negotiate.
I don’t mention this because I want to point out that I was right, I point it out because I think it’s important to understand the logic that got us here because it shapes where things go next.
Personally, I don’t believe Thaksin or Srettha ever cared about cannabis. They really stood very little to gain in terms of advancing an agenda that the Thai people would benefit from. From the very beginning this was all about Pheu Thai creating value from nothing.
If Pheu Thai said nothing about cannabis and Anutin had been able to pass a bill with light regulation what incentive would Anutin have to support Pheu Thai on other issues?
Thaksin was able to create value by recognizing that Anutin would fight for weed, so if Thaksin could make it appear that Anutin’s cannabis legalization was in jeopardy he could cash in that chip in exchange for Anutin support.
And while some people, even myself on a few occasions, felt like Anutin wasn’t doing enough at times, I do believe he played his cards perfectly here. He remained respectful knowing that eventually Thaksin had to come to the negotiating table.
Not gonna lie though, Anutin’s nonchalant attitude did have me worried at times.
That’s the thing about politics though, it’s a game of incomplete information. You don’t know what the other side knows and you don’t know what they think you know, or what they think you think they think you know. And if you’re just trying to make sense of what’s going on, well, that’s even more difficult.
Which brings up an alternative theory that The Nation recently reported on which pegs Anutin as a possible next prime minister should Srettha be removed as PM.
That sort of fits with my previously mentioned theory of Pheu Thai losing control of the government but The Nation seems to have details about how the process would work that I was not fully aware of when I originally suggested that parliament would be forced to vote for a new prime minister.
For instance, I was unaware that the new prime minister would be required to have been up for the prime minister role in the last election.
That means that there are five people who are eligible to become prime minister.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, leader of the Pheu Thai Party
Chaikasem Nitisiri, a Pheu Thai Party candidate
Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, and leader of the Bhumjaithai Party
General Prawit Wongsuwan, leader of the Palang Pracharath Party
Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Energy and leader of the United Thai Nation Party.
As I’ve noted in previous newsletters, Paetongtarn is a no-go. Paetongtarn has said publicly she doesn’t feel ready for the role. She also doesn’t have very much public support and is seen by many as being inexperienced in politics.
Chaikasem who? He’s not that popular and has health problems that would likely keep him from becoming prime minister.
Prawit and Pirapan would also have problems getting enough votes.
That leaves Anutin as the PM candidate that has the best chance of taking the spot.
This brings a new level of intrigue regarding Thaksin and Anutin’s recent meeting and the about-face on cannabis by Thaksin.
Thaksin may be trying to cash in that political chip and keep his own political ambitions from being completely wiped out.
Bhumjaithai picked up a lot of the seats in the recent senate elections, and while the senate has less power to stand in the way of a prime minister appointment like they did for Move Forward’s Pita, Bhumjaithai has increased its own power in parliament.
And as The Nation pointed out, if Move Forward is dissolved on Aug 7, Bhumjaithai has been mopping up Move Forward defectors and would be a likely choice for members of the largest party to move to if their party no longer existed.
In this completely speculative scenario, Bhumjaithai could pick up enough MPs to overtake Pheu Thai in seats in parliament making it the largest political party in parliament.
That may be Thaksin’s play here. While his bargaining chip still has value, he may be trying to secure a deal which doesn’t completely shut Pheu Thai out.
Clearly, the Move Forward Party members who felt Pheu Thai stabbed them in the back joining Bhumjaithai would be a deathblow to Thaksin’s ambitions for the short and medium term.
So, making a deal with Anutin prior to the decision on whether Move Forward will be permitted to exist is a wise move as Anutin would have no incentive to bargain with Pheu Thai if he suddenly finds Bhumjaithai with more MPs than Pheu Thai and is able to form a coalition party without Pheu Thai.
We still don’t know how the cannabis bill will look when it finally reaches a vote though. And we don’t even know if Srettha will still be the prime minister or if Pheu Thai party will be leading the coalition government.
So, it’s not quite over yet but we’re in a position where things are more likely to get better than what Srettha was promising just a few days ago.
As I pointed out in the previous newsletter, barring something that prevents an Anutin bill from being approved, it’s a pretty safe bet that recreational isn’t happening for a bit.
The most likely outcome at the moment is that we see what I’m referring to as Soft Medical bill. And I define Soft Medical as, needing to obtain some sort of medical exam and adding some sort of pretense of medicinal use. We will also likely see additional restrictions on where cannabis can be consumed in public as that seemed to be a major sticking point for many people opposed to cannabis.
We simply won’t know until we see a proposal.
Regardless, I think this entire ordeal has been a wake up call for some. Many people jumped in thinking it would rain down green gold on them, but found out the hard way that when you have a dispensary every 10 meters and anybody with land can grow weed, it’s a brutally tough business.
I still think we’ll continue to see consolidation in the industry as the barely profitable and unprofitable businesses close their doors.
Likewise, cannabis consumers may be in for a little bad news as well. One thing that has held police at bay the last two years is the fact that there are no laws. Once there are laws, those laws can be enforced.
For instance, refusing to show a passport to purchase weed is likely to become a thing of the past. The police are likely to be far less tolerant of people smoking in public. Things like edibles may disappear as the vast majority of manufacturers are making their products illegally.
We all were able to enjoy a period of relatively zero law enforcement. Adjusting to this new era may come as a bit of a shock to some people who have been operating with the mindset that everything is legal.
But there’s an upside to that too. Hopefully, once all of the legality questions have been put to bed, perhaps we’ll see more investment, more openness from banks to provide better banking products to dispensaries, and more legitimacy of the overall industry.
However, we should avoid the mistakes from the current era as well.
For instance, people grossly underestimated the lack of support for recreational cannabis use in Thailand. I don’t care what the deniers say, Thais, generally, don’t like recreational cannabis. That is simply a fact. There have been multiple polls from NIDA, a top polling group in Thailand, confirming this. And those numbers have been confirmed by other polling groups that have shown similar results.
But that isn’t surprising. Thailand started from a different place than most countries that have legalized cannabis. Because of the overly harsh penalties for drug use, not a lot of Thais were smoking weed prior to legalization compared to other countries.
In fact, some researchers feel that Thailand joining the US War on Drugs back in the 1960s and cracking down on cannabis growers in Thailand is what caused many Thais to switch to the more widely available yaba (meth) as their drug of choice.
Only about 4.2% of Thais were cannabis users pre-legalization according to polls done at the time. Contrast that with the US where over 50% of Americans that had tried cannabis. Nor is that a recent trend, going back as far as the 1980’s 33% of Americans had tried cannabis before and for Thais it was about 2% even just a few years ago.
Thais simply didn’t have the same point of reference as many other countries. They hadn’t tried it and seen for themselves that the government had been lying to them for decades.
That makes Thais much more susceptible to FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).
An issue exacerbated by nearly every Thai-language media outlet that covered suspected cannabis related crime for the last two years using phrases like “Ganja crazed man . . .” and “Ganja addicted woman . . . “
There’s no way that anyone that can read Thai (or even has access to a decent translation app) and has looked at these stories can argue that the NIDA polling results aren’t at least somewhat reflective of the tone taken in Thai-language media.
And that is what the cannabis community needs to be working on as we move forward.
I remember approaching some Thai cannabis activists after legalization and asking how our subreddit members might be able to contribute to the cannabis movement and was told that there’s nothing to be done, weed is legal, it’s all good.
But obviously, it wasn’t all good.
And we risk ending up in a similar situation in months or years when the next politician wants to harness public fear to go after cannabis.
The next phase, regardless of whatever Anutin’s bill looks like, or whoever is prime minister, needs to focus on educating the Thai public on cannabis.
So many of the stories both in the English and Thai language media were so devoid of factual information about cannabis it would be comical if it wasn’t so frustrating. They need to be called out, refuted, and kept in check.
For instance, the mayor of Bangkok declaring that a man died of a cannabis overdose. No autopsy results, just his hunch (spoiler alert: it was eventually deemed a heart attack and he had a pre-existing cardiac condition). Forget the fact that there isn’t a single fatal overdose on cannabis in recorded human history.
These stories get out there and proliferate because there was nobody in position to refute them.
The community needs a group of spokespeople who can target individual journalists (in Thai and English) when they report scientifically inaccurate information and educate them. The media outlets themselves should likewise be targeted and called to task for not fact checking their stories.
Unfortunately, the cannabis advocacy groups that existed pre-legalization mostly disbanded. The new groups that started springing up were more business advocacy groups, mostly focused on issues impacting businesses.
The Writing Thailand's Cannabis Future cannabis advocacy group is a step in the right direction but, IMHO, it’s too Thai-centric at the moment.
Given estimates that 90% of cannabis sales are to foreigners, it makes sense to include foreigners in the conversation as well.
We need advocates that understand that legalization is the beginning of the fight, not the end.
We have decades of FUD clouding the debate and influencing people’s perceptions of cannabis and that doesn’t disappear when they publish the new law in the Royal Gazette.
We will always be at risk of losing cannabis again if we don’t do more to educate people and dispute anti-cannabis propaganda.
That needs to be the next phase in the fight.
Stay lifted and enlightened,
Don’t forget that we’ve partnered with some dispensaries for exclusive deals available to members of this newsletter and the r/CannabisThailand sub on Reddit. Just type “Dank Deal” into the comments of any post and the AutoMod will send you the current discounts being offered.
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