Dogmatix

Quite a confusing article. It is to be expected that international reserves are down. Thailand has been running a current account deficit since COVID and the BoT is hiking rates at a much slower rate than the Fed. In addition to the current account deficit there have been significant portfolio outflows putting further pressure on the capital account and international reserves. Probably the BoT has been intervening in the market to slow the rate of the baht's decline but that is part of their job to keep conditions as stable as possible. I don't see anything unusual here with the caveat that the BoT, I think reports only spot international reserves without netting off futures and forward positions, a standard they got from the Bank of England. This means that gains or losses in the futures and forwards markets are not reflected n the reported numbers. In 1997 I came from a meeting at the BoT where they told us reserves were still at around $30bn but it was suddenly revealed a few days later that netting off losses in the futures and forwards markets, the reserves were actually close to zero and the melt down commenced. We are not close to the 1997 situation at this point.

Fortunately amending the list of prohibited narcotics is not up to parliament. The category lists are annexes to the Narcotics Prevention Act which are in the power of the minister of public health to amend with a simple royal decree with the approval of the narcotics committee which is, of course, appointed by the minister. Anutin just had to publish a one pager in the Royal Gazette to legalize cannabsi. Need to watch carefully who gets the public health portfolio in the next govenment. If BJT is in the government, Anutin will push forcefully to get it himself or for one of him boys.

More ominous but not mentioned in this article is the fact that Parliament didn't pass the second reading of the Bhumjaithai sponsored Cannabis and Hemp Bill. Instead they voted with a narrow margin to withdraw it temporarily in order to toughen it up before reconvening the second reading. The objections those that voted against want to be addressed appeared to be mainly that the bill didn't do enough to protect young people from getting hold of cannabis and that it sanctioned recreational use (presumably be default). Bhumjaithai insisted that the draft was already complete and that holding up the process would make it unlikely to pass the third reading before parliament is dissolved which must be done by March. Anyway after getting an extremely flimsy bill past the first reading with ease, the growing backlash forced BJP to agree to a number of concessions toughen up the bill for the second reading but it wasn't enough. If it doesn't get passed in this parliament, the current free for all will probably continue for another year or more but the next government will be able to scrap the bill and draft a new one from scratch. If Thaksin has anything to do with the next government, the chance of tightening things up to make recreational use illegal will be much higher.

Exactly. They are a pretty moronic bunch now. They voted for the legalization and now want to jump on the backlash bandwaggon in the hope it will get them votes in the next election and/or help do a deal with Thaksin. Time was that I was a supporter of the Democrats when they had Chuan as leader and were against the Suchinda military government which they took over from. Again with Abhisit and Korn they had something going for them, even though the reds didn't appreciate them. Now I hope they will be further wiped out in the election which is a good chance without their former great white hope, the (alleged) rapist Prinn as deputy leader.

True. Especially for German speakers, since tripper - gonorrhea in German, as in the slang expression Tripper Clipper (charter flights bringing German sex tourists to Thailand).

Thanks for the clarifications which make a lot of sense. I have very little experience with edibles but I agree they can be unsafe products as we cannot see what has gone into them or how much. Most of the problems of cannabis with newby tourists in Amsterdam are with hash brownies and space cakes (not to mention magic mushrooms). The edibles are often attractive to newbies because they have never smoked and don't wish to start. They consume too much either thinking nothing has happened after an hour or just because they taste moreish or both. Then end up in a helpless state for several hours and may be taken to the emergency room. Something similar, although usually of shorter duration, can happen when you smoke today's varieties of strong skunk but most newbies would cough and splutter and not be able to smoke enough quickly enough to get themselves into a catatonic state. There is already one YouTube video posted by a foreign backpacker couple, not looking to get high, who bought "CBD brownies" neatly packaged and labeled as such in Bangkok. Within a couple of hours they were slightly unpleasantly ripped out of their heads but were obviously not newbies and able to handle it. A few more cases of irresponsible vendors like that could cause a crackdown on edibles, especially after the new law comes in. Edibles are the way to go for those who don't want to smoke but I think it is best to make your own from decarbed product or decarb yourself, so you know exactly what you are taking and can start off with small amunts. If you are not a baker, you can just chuck the decarbed, ground up weed into a yoghurt or a cup of cocoa or something and it should work, if there is fat for the THC to bind with, such as full fat yoghurt or milk. No need to make extracts first. I am not sure, if it is necessary to mix the decarbed weed with coconut or olive oil first. Theoretically the full fat dairy product is enough but a teaspoon of oil might enhance the effect and the taste would hardly notice in a flavored yoghurt. I have seen little decarb machines on sale on Amazon and Alibaba with 220v plugs wich might reduce the odour of decarbing.

The mother doesn't want the trouble of having to visit her daughter in Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, London once the fun is over. But I would quite like to see Ing in action as PM. None of Thaksin's kids appear overly bright the neither of the daughters are photogenic like ther Aunt Yingluck. Thaksin chose his wife because she was the daughter of a senior police general who could advance his career in the police but these are not genetic qualities that can be passed on.

What kind of teacher did he meet in Pattaya? Did he check her teaching credentials?

I belive they give a small discount for 3 or more siblings. At least Patana, like NIST and ISB, is theoretically non profit but that doesn't stop them generating substantial surpluses and I don't think they offer any scholarships or any form of assistance for needy kids. It's sink or swim. The top for profit international schools owned by Thai Chinese families like Shrewsbury, Harrow, Brighton, Wellington, King's School are more expensive than Patana but they have lower ratios of foreign students than Patana, NIST and ISB that maintain quotas for Thai kids and get embassy and corporate expat kids. Most students at the for profit international schools are Thai Chinese.

I understand that decarbed weed is merely baked flowers and nothing is extracted but does the MoPH agree that decarbed weed is not an extract? Also how about hash? Kief seems to be just a separated but unprocessed part of the plant in the same way that flowers, seeds and leaves are separated. Hash isn't technically extracted from kief. It is made by applying heat and pressure and can be made by just rolling kief in the hands. But the MoPH, police and courts may not see it that way for hash, kief or decarbed weed. Then you have edibles which could be made from decarbed weed just thrown into the mix ground up which is technically not an extract or from canna oil or butter which technically are extracts as they throw away the residual plant matter. No way to tell one from t'other without detailed lab analysis and the effect on eaters is the same. But, as I understand it, edibles will require an FDA licence under the Cannabis and Hemp Act which will only be accessible to large producers who have the ability to deal with the corrupt FDA and for CBD edibles only.

Probably illegal as it could be deemed made from extracts containing over 0.2% THC, as most is made with canna oil or canna butter0. But as Bruno said, you could make it yourself from legal weed without using the oil or butter. Just throw it in decarbed.

Many people went unpunished but the Thai CEO, Krirkiat, and at least two other Thais also went to prison. There was a strong suspicion that people in the Bank of Thailand were in on it or at least knew about it. It must have stuck out like a sore thumb at the reviews by the BoT's supervision deparment that something was wrong. Just looking at the financial statements anyone could see there was something very weird. ROE, ROA, assets per branch and assets per employee were obviously artificially high, as was also the case at other banks that collapsed like First Bangkok Bank and Nakornthon Bank. You didn't need a lot of branches or staff to lend to fake companies or family businesses with no assets or buy up defaulted Turkish car loans or Russian credit card debt. These ratios were red flag and any digging below the surface after seeing that would have revealed loans to borrowers that didn't meet BoT rules as well as overseas lending by banks that didn't have overseas branches or trade finance business. I was a banking analyst in the 1990s and it was very obvious at a glance that there was something badly wrong with most, if not all, of Thailand's small banks. So I just didn't touch them but the BoT must have seen this too. Krirkiat was a protege of the governor of the BoT who refused to see anything wrong at BBC.

That is the gross sentence adding up the penalties for all the offences he was convicted of. The net sentence he actually has to serve is 20 years. He is a foreigner, not the patriach of an influential Thai Chinese clan and owner of a huge business empire like Boss' father.

The DMS faulted the trial in the US, Mexico and Brazil and cited in its place a trial done in Thailand with a laughably small smaple of 93 patients. It is impossible to find any evidence online of any trials that proved its efficacy apart from this Thai study. Favi has also been widely used in India and other third world countries due to its low production cost and the "better than nothing" approach of doctors but none have proved its efficacy. Most, if not all of the drug used for COVID may have been produced illegally, since the copyright owner, Fujifilm, has announced it would not market it is as a COVID treatment due to inconclusive trials. https://www.fujifilm.com/fftc/en/avigan Lots of the stuff has been first imported from China and then made in Thailand and given to Thai patients for reasons that remain unclear. Of course it is possible that it is mildly effective against COVID, despite the lack of evidence, and that it does no harm. I hope it is the case as my family was given it for COVID and were convinced that it must be effective, if govenment doctors said so. It is or was available from govenment clinics just on production of an ID card and a statement that the ID holder had tested positive. Motor cycle taxis could pick it up. The option was Green Chiretta for which there is also no evidence of efficacy.

This is not something that can be discussed here.

He was always rumoured to be a "bagman", whatever that means, for Prawit when he was head of Immigration. He used to travel all over the country on important but often unspecified missions and did things like investigating illegal casinos that were nothing to do with Immigration. Then he allegedly upset someone rather important and had to be removed temporarily from the police, with only Prawit's intervention allegedly saving him from prison. After an appropriate period on the bench with many wais and apologies Prawit was apparently to arrange for his rehab back into the police. This new appointment shows that Prawit is still pulling all the strings, as he was with Brother Prayut as the front man, but now openly. Big Joke's rise will come to an end if Big Pom (Prawit) loses power or Big Joke hits retirement, whichever comes first.

They have a page marked "extracts". I wonder how they guarantee not more than 0.2% THC.

Wrong. It was designed to prevent Thaksin from being PM for too long. In his case the court might oblige with a ruling that his time as PM in the noughties did count towards the 8 years.