Thailand's Weed Laws Go UP IN SMOKE

okay so what the hell's going on with Thailand's weed laws everything's changing in 2024 at least that's what they're saying and there's more questions than answers are you going to get busted for smoking dubes in public are you going to be able to smoke recreationally at all is it going to be available medical or are they going to throw you in the clink just for thinking about it I don't have the answers but I got a professional inside here this is one of Thailand's Premier weed stores Wonderland and I got the CEO of perhaps the biggest weed company here in Thailand these guys know their they know what's going on and I thought it'd be cool to sit down with them and run over what the hell's happening and what you guys can expect in 20124 so without further Ado let's go into Wonderland and talk to Mr Ben Baskins so Ben it's been a while man how's it going yeah happy New Year yeah Happy New Year to you well is it going to be a happy New Year I guess that's the question how happy is it going to be yeah so what do you know what's what's going on I've been away I come back and all this news is all over the place about a potential reversal of laws a change in what's happening yeah it's been a you know as you know it's been a crazy roller coaster uh with the elections which we talked briefly at that time you know everybody was happy um and then we've gone through the last 6 months of you know hearing rumors about uh new laws and and the last uh going back two weeks ago what we were hearing was that there was going to be basically four different laws right four drafts and then those drafts you know coming from different people whether it's Pro Canabis or you know they got more conservative folks um that don't want cannabis at all right so uh but what ended up happening was uh Dr cholan which is um uh basically you know he's taken over Anton's position so that's the health Minister yeah as the health Minister um he came out kind of as a surprise um with his draft actually the ttms the tii traditional Medicine office had a draft they gave it to Dr chalong um and then immediately after that it was like okay well we're just waiting for the other drafts to review those and then we're going to have the public hearing um but what happened was uh he made an announcement and he basically said listen uh this is the draft that I want to present to Parliament um he didn't specify if there's going to be a public hearing or not um and then there was a bit of an uproar in regards to like hey there's you know I thought there was going to be other laws drafted um the Cannabis Community uh had a law they were getting uh basically signatures on that uh on that law cuz you have to petition it I think it's 25,000 signatures um so that was taking place so there was a bit of array of Hope there with that and then um as of a few days ago um as I mentioned was that the you know the TTM law Dr CH Chach chat uh basically said listen it's going to go through um there was no mention of the public hearings and then finally um it was literally two days ago that they announced there's going to be a public hearing at Parliament which is taking place right now right now as we talk now and so let's just go back to the bill like what I've heard what I've read is is basically that recreational use is going to be reversed and it's going to be medical what do what do you know about what's in the proposed Bill even I mean going back a year ago when this was P or two years ago June 9th uh when this was passed you know was always the medical thing and you know conversations that we had even it was about Thai traditional medicine doctors having them in the stores you know having them present um having them assist with any questions and we always felt that with the initial law even the first law that Anton had drafted up that that was going to be a prescription based the initial one was a bit of a surprise them in in just how open and and lack of any sort of restriction there was no law passed basically the law hadn't been passed the only thing that they did is that they took cannabis off uh the the n narcotics list on on on narcotics whatever it was what whatever the number was so they took it off the list and then they had a draft that that never passed Parliament they never won those votes so then what happened was you had all of this gray area which resulted in the free for all trucks pulling over the side of the street opening up shop and just having so is the extreme because they couldn't agree on that law you know every time it went up for vote uh they just couldn't agree on it so it was a stalemate um and then then the new uh government came in and they said listen we're going to you know fix this we're going to have regulations um it's going to be clear you know it was always the kind of the threat of they're going to I mean the worst case scenario which this is not going to happen is they're going to put it back on the narcotics list right they've gone too far there's too many people invested in the business there's too many grows there's too many stores there's too many um landlords dude I heard there's over 6,000 500 stores my first thought is that 6,500 landlords hanging vacancy signs in the worst case I can't see that happen that just can't be good for the economy now that the trains left the station it can't it really helped I mean after Co you know all these landlords were suffering they didn't have tenants so you had all these kind of what looked like derit buildings around the city and if you notice around Bangkok yeah there's a lot of weed leaves um but you know you have you occupancy rates you know very high the landlords the economy is booming you know the whole point of the community is let's look at the society as it is right we've got drug use methampetamine use which does cannabis help and and helping those folks yes it does there's numbers to prove that alcohol use I I personally I know five people you know just in the last I would say I heard these stories probably in the last three months that were alcoholic like full rage alcoholics you know the guys that I used to see uh in the clubs that I was like oh you know don't want to see him just the worst drunks in the world I won't mention any names sloppy drunks sloppy drunks yeah and you know the stories that they're telling me that that now that cannabis is legal it's like I've stopped drinking you know my life has changed I'm back with my wife my kids love me again my business is in place but I think like the new law is proposed to to keep it medical right so so I would say that the government here seemingly agrees to some degree I guess depending on what's considered medical do you know anything about how that process would go to get a medical exemption for weed in this new potential world the basis of the tii traditional medicine right how they work they work on the leaves the stems um you know um uh not so much the flower necessarily they don't Focus so much on the flower uh The Roots right so they have recipes you know ancient recipes in in fact for all of these things so the initial um and and again you know the doctor has said listen by no means is this the final draft we still have to look at how we're going to control it you know what are the regulations behind it so their idea is that they're going to be selling stems Roots um leaves you know these kind of it wouldn't be like the California medical when I moved to LA it was Medical Only but you could get all parts of the plant you could get a bud if you saw your doctor said you know there's a multitude of things that I think you and I both know cannabis is maybe the best treatment for um you know myself I had chronic back problems trouble sleeping that was certainly enough in California to get a medical marijuana card at which point I could come into a shop that looks a lot like this and buy any part of the plant that I wanted as my medicine are you saying that that isn't what they're thinking about here the reality of it okay how it's probably going to play out and we've been preparing for this for for a while um with our Thai traditional medicine doctors is basically there would be some kind of Clinic where you had a Thai traditional medicine doctor would receive the the the patient in this case kind of like California like Canada um and then they write a prescription you know like okay yeah you can't sleep uh back pain etc etc we're assuming that it's going to go down that way in addition to that you know the whole talk of products that are made with less than 0.2% THC and as you may or may not know that I mean that sounds like a low amount right but you'd be surprised you know because now we talk about Edibles yeah right um you'd be surprised because it's it's it's based on 0.2% so you can still get a five uh mgram uh gummy you know that's that that's a nice you know not too big right that still is uh 0 below 0.2% THC oh good so there's something just to add to this story is you shouldn't have any problems getting Edibles yeah the only other little you know idea or thought that people are throwing around is that if it's if it's if it's 0.2% would that mean in worst case let's say for example if they didn't have the doctors writing uh prescriptions then what would it be would it be okay you've got a flower and then you have the roots the stems you know to make up a bulk of that package so let's say it's 10 milligrams would the0 2% also apply to the flower itself that might be the loophole who knows wow that'd be weird that would be very weird yeah but I mean they're this is the kind of talk that they're having right now yeah it's like yeah 0.2% and then we're just scratching our head going okay how does that work that's weird cuz again coming from Canada we went medical this probably 10 15 years ago all parts of the flower you know medical grade good production licensed shop see your doctor great good for the public uh and then 10 years on from that it went fully recreational Nationwide in Canada again without you know picking different parts of the plant and and trying to kind of decide that this is legal but that part of the plant's not legal to me that doesn't make too much sense no it it really doesn't uh and you know just CU probably a lot of people wouldn't know this this this kind of stuff so and and if you weren't to study the like the Thai traditional medicine recipes CU they have these I think I believe it's 16 um you know 100y old recipes that forefathers uh in the medical field before uh you know going back I don't know 100 200 300 years ago is that they made these um uh these recipes of how to use cannabis right in Thailand in Thailand yeah and that's kind of like the law of the Thai traditional medicine doctors so um that's where all of the stims and roots and adding other herbs and so forth uh to the Cannabis flower uh or parts of the flower I should say uh came in because it's it's just part of their writings you know they've had these recipes and those other parts have been used for medicinal purposes for a long time to me if you're going to go medical if if that's what they end up doing and they pull the recreational back at that point I would have thought the biggest benefit of it would be the quality of everything gets to elevate it it turns into what I've been used to in California and Canada where the quality is is just topnotch and and it is an actual medicine yeah you know if I if I had to go and say you know put my bet on something right my bet and and okay I I'll pretext this as well right because Canada America is different than Thailand in the S there's a few things that are different um and those things are that there's a lot of uh different types of businesses in Thailand that fun F in the gray right and that's just part of everyday life and so you know with any law of course it's very important that we have a very clear we you know we have very clear law um we have very clear stipulations for us to operate as a legitimate business which uh you know we do everything uh according to the law we always have and we always will and it'll be hard to police like to put that Genie back in bottle is going to be awfully hard but I wanted to go back cuz you had mentioned you guys have been preparing for this since your Inception so just walk me through what that would mean to the average person who lives here let let's say for argum sake it goes medical the average person who's lives or travels to Bangkok and their home country has the uh has it either legal or medicinal and they want to get their medicine in the form of a bud or an edible what happens when they walk in the door of Wonderland here more than likely it would probably be uh a separate location which would be next door cuz we have a clinic next door so that's Wonderland clinich and then we have Thai traditional medicine doctors that we actually you know at the at the clinic we do uh different types of treatments you know that are that are cannabis oriented and some that aren't um so as I see it is that we just transform That Into You know a medical office for the Thai traditional medicine doctors to to write their prescriptions and then they come over and uh and get their cannabis or you know if you can write the a prescription inside the store uh then we would be prepared for that um so either way I mean in California um it was that it was a separate location a lot of yeah and then you also get one thing I'm curious about is you get a card for a year yeah at which point you can just use that card and every year you have to renew that card by going back to the clinic but you don't need a prescription every time you get the card you walk into Wonderland uh wal into Cloud9 walk into any you know uh established medicinal dispensary and there you go do you think that's it yeah play out here so what a lot of people don't even know because it's very difficult to um follow through with this but the law is that we have to record every customer that comes in and take their passport their name their passport number and how much cannabis they they purchased right and this is a good example of I mean we do the reports every single month and we ask every single customer that comes in here right and you know we record those names right that's in play right now yeah right so this is just another another layer on top of that right it would be more strict so they then would be able to kind of understand um with a little bit more certainty that it is the actual person with that actual name and that passport number if this does take place and the only way that will work is that if it's even playing field which as you know in Thailand a lot of times it never is I mean my personal opinion it would be great if that does happen but I mean we'd be happy for it we're set up for it we've got the doctors um we've got the system you know we're doing the reports already uh just one last step is that that everybody's you know participating in that um you know uh all the way down uh you know sukumvit and around Thailand if if everybody follows those same protocols and it's it's it's an even playing field uh I I I think it would definitely work and then something that's understood and not you know set to change unless maybe it progresses like the rest of the countries who've tackled this this kind of cannabis subject start with medical go to recreational there's there's a natural progression that seems to historically play out in places but to have it change every year or two must make it tough for guys like you who are just trying to run a business uh in they just got to have hope yeah keep the hope and you know it's it's it's like we can look at Canada we can look at America which I mean America in particular was California in particular was very dicey you know it's on it's off it's illegal it's medical it's I mean that was state legal Federal illegal I mean yeah that you know again uh everybody that went through that you know can probably relate 100% to this who knows how it's going to turn out uh as far as what it says on paper um uh hopefully it will be just a really clear recreational or sorry sorry really clear law uh uh set set of of uh of of of of standards that need to happen and everybody follows them yeah and what do you think happens from here like from a timeline perspective like where does this go how long does it take to play out and where does It ultimately land say by the end of 2024 what's going on in Thailand weed today we have the public hearing at the Parliament and then what they're talking about is pretty much that that will then have to go to Parliament for the vote right so once the public has their say right and however that process looks like um if they do actually take in consideration what a lot of uh the arguments are um or the concerns are with the with the with the current draft um whether or not the government will you know take action modify something um that's kind kind of the unknown so if that happens then you know we're going to look at probably another month or two um that will actually go to Parliament if that doesn't happen if it's just like Hey listen you know we don't care we're just going to try to put this through the parliament um because what they're saying is that once it goes to Parliament they're asking for suggestions from the parliament of what the actual laws will be MH so there's the draft and that basically just gives you the structure the overall General kind of structure uh it gives suggestions about what maybe the fines will be just keep in mind they still need to with this draft they have to figure out what the you know what are the specifics what are the specifics of that so in that that's where we're hoping that the parliament basically says hey do it like California it worked there it worked in Canada it's a great model for us to that's what I expected right from the get-go yeah I thought like that that's a model that has worked out great and and it's pretty the Tha traditional Medicine office they're not they're not specifically saying that at all and that law how they how it it's read it's it's basically they they've put this really uh strict uh structure together based on tii traditional medicine right because that's what they know um and then as far as the specifics on on how they're going to carry it out they're waiting to hear from the lead ERS on how that looks like and suggestions hopefully from the public yeah you know hopefully from the people that are that are you know using the products for medical use well not only that like okay we we could we could joke and say it's a bunch of pads down at the public hearing today but what about those 6,500 landlords in those 6,500 shops like how many how many people work here in Wonderland yeah about I mean uh just this location 15 15 and not every of the 6500 has 15 people but there's tens of thousands of retail workers they might want to show up to the public hearing you got the farmers imagine how many farmers are are now their their livelihoods been is now based on this yeah there's thousands of licenses for the Farms given a directive a year and a half ago to say you go make a better life for yourselves thousands of farmers and that's something they're proposing is that also to take it out of the hands of the home Growers you know cuz they gave out all the free Plants they gave a million free plants and said listen go grow it in your own homes yeah and they're going to they're talking about taking that away to that'll be it's going to be really hard to police yeah a pullback like that when they when when those maybe they didn't give away the full million plants but yeah there's a lot of people with little homeg grow setups that that um might not even get the memo yeah yeah 100% and they'll be like well what and then even the big grows because you can get the the license you can get the Thai traditional medicine license um without the the Gap right the Thai uh Gap MH and uh so with the license it's still considered a hom grow and then in order for you to have like a like to qualify as a real like professional um how how can I say legitimate um grow that can distribute products you have to get the the Gap so uh there's a lot of farms that still haven't gotten the Gap too so those would be considered as hom growth and so it's not just like literally the home grows you know we're talking about the mom and pop with two plants but there's home grows that have you know 50 lights yeah have full fledged businesses yeah oh yeah full-fledged businesses that you know maybe haven't heard you know that that because it's not uh really public knowledge it's kind of that's like Insider talk that yeah you have to have that it's not like you know everybody reads the news every day or have somebody telling them you know that this is taking place it was um you know there's Public Notices but again you know who reads all the Public Notices well it's going to be an interesting year for weed man how are you feeling about all of this you know like always uh we're feeling very optimistic you know um it it should be fine yeah like it would it's a part of the national economy how much maybe maybe not crazy substantially yet but certainly uh substantial enough that it would I think impact tens of thousands of Liv hoods yeah it would and tourism MH you know uh we've seen so many tourists over here it was a great season um and yeah I mean we just stay optimistic you know uh on on on how how it's going to turn out because you know we we know uh you know how great the plant is and what it does for people you know every day we hear those stories so just staying super optimistic you know telling our team you know that it's going to be all right uh you know we've really built a great family around cannabis you know whether it's all OG um or a lot of the shop owners and their staff you know everybody's really tight and it's it it's a really cool environment it's you know I guess there's some competitiveness because there's so many shops but for the most part you know everybody's working together um how many locations do you guys have overall uh we have 12 12 locations 12 locations 12 locations nice so we have uh a a CBD shop in that uh and then we have a clinic and then uh basically 10 10 stores and this is Kush house yeah Kush house Cloud9 uh Mary Janes one Wonderland this is a funky Place yeah Wonderland yeah well well I'm going to bet my money that by the end of 2024 it will have gone the California route I just think that that's if it's not going to be recreational if they feel the need to roll back recreational um for the time being I'm going to bet that they're going to say California model that's what it is let's definitely see on that I hopefully that will be the case yeah that's what we're looking forward to yeah nice well thanks for talking to me maybe maybe we do this again in 6 months or whenever this uh law passes if it passes well we'll uh pop the bottles of [Music] champagne

Channel: Retired Working For You

Views: 262,583

Keywords: thailand, bangkok, thailand weed, thailand marijuana, thailand laws, thai weed laws, cannabis laws, thailand cannabis laws, thailand marijuana laws, is weed legal in thailand?, thailand tourism, thailand travel, living in thailand

Id: izHC1c7hm9o

Length: 25min 47sec (1547 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024