Arkady

I agree with Yankee. If you have already completed a round trip successfully with your Thai passport, you can relax. The chance of any hassle is close to zero. in the remote event there should be a problem, you have followed best practice and cancelled the visa. Many people in this thread reported that did not bother to cancel their visas and had no trouble with multiple trips under their belt. I think you can argue that visas just expire anyway, if not cancelled. The only time this has ever caused problems is when people who already had Thai nationality arrived with a foreign passport and left on a brand new Thai one but there are no cases that I know of recorded in AN or elsewhere where newly naturalised Thais have had this problem. Of course, there is always a first time, I know. Maybe someone else can tell you, if they should have stamped something in your passport to cancel the visa. In my case I I had PR and thought it necessary to cancel it, as retaining PR, which, unlike, visas doesn't expire, could imply the retention of a foreign identity in Thailand. Also there is a clear process for surrendering PR at CW which only takes a few minutes with no queue and it can be done on the way to the passport office nearby. For my WP I took the view there was no point in going to the trouble of cancelling it and just it expire.

Now it is pretty clear what they are trying to do and I have the sense this time that they could get it done. This is nothing new as the Land Code in Section 96 bis was amended in 1999 by the Chuan government to allow foreigners to own 1 rai of land if they put THB 40 million into approved investments. The law provided for much of the key details to be filled in with ministerial regulations. When the were issued several years later, huge backtracking was evidence because the regulations specified approved investments that did not exist. So no one was able to use this law to buy land. But it remains on the books and can easily be activated. The government can issue a one page decree to create new ministerial regulations that will bring this law to life for the first time. This will avoid the painstaking process of getting completely new amendments through parliament against political opposition and dealing with the public backlash as it grinds through its three readings. Not to mention that the government has no time to pass any new legislation before its time will be up. Think of it like the legalisation of cannabis. A one page decree followed by a 120 waitiing period and they're done without many Thais even noticing. They wake up 4 months later and find foreigners are allowed to own land. What they can't change without going through the parliamentary process is what is already in the law, e.g. ministerial approval is required for each transaction and purchases can only be made in Bangkok, Pattaya or areas designated as residential zones throughout the country. The ministerial approval will probably make it unviable for those without the highest level connections. What seller is going to wait around for months or years for that? But they can make the investment conditions viable. In 1999 the intention was to get foreigner to invest mainly in special real estate funds designed to help out the crippled property industry but by the time the regulations came out these fund were no longer being issued. The BOI was empowered to designate alternative qualifying investments but declined to do so. An easy way would be to designate investments in any BOI promoted company or any stocks listed on the SET. Unlike the now redundant provisions in the Land Code for foreigners to own land under international treaties owners, there is no provision for foreign heirs to inherit the land. So presumably the estate would have 12 months to sell to a Thai buyer, as in the case of foreign heirs of a Thai citizen. The treaty laws allowed foreign heirs to inherit as long as they were also qualified to hold land under the relevant treaty. This is the current law. Land Code (Added by Land Code Amendment Act 1999) Section 96 bis The provisions prescribing the acquisition of land by foreigners by virtue of the provisions of a treaty under first paragraph of Section 86 shall not apply to the foreigners who bring in the capital for investment more than forty million Baht as prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations whereas the acquisition of land for purpose of residence shall not exceed one rai and shall be approved by the Minister. The acquisition of land by foreigners under paragraph one shall be in accordance with the rules, procedures, and conditions prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations. The essential issues shall be included in the Ministerial Regulations as follows. (1) The type of business in which the foreigners invest that economically and socially benefits the country or which is declared by the Board of Investment as eligible for the application of the investment promotion under the law thereon. (2) The period of maintaining the investment shall not be less than three years. (3) The land that the foreigners may acquire shall be within the locality of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the City of Pattaya, Municipality, or the zone designated to be the residential area under the law on city planning. Section 96 ter Any foreigner who is granted to acquired land under Section 96 bis shall, if fails to comply with the rules or conditions prescribed in paragraph two of Section 96 bis in the Ministerial Regulations, dispose of the land being under his/her right within the time period prescribed by the Director-General which is not later than a hundred and eighty days but not longer than one year. If such time period elapses, the Director-General shall have power to dispose of such land. If the land granted to be acquired by the foreigner under Section 96 bis is not used for purpose of residence within two years from the registration date of acquisition, the Minister shall have power to dispose of such land.

The government's plan to charge the tourism fee to all incoming foreigners without except based on the nationality shown on their ticket raises an interesting question about dual nationals. Presumably they will be charged, if they buy a ticket under their foreign nationalities and perhaps that will show up somewhere undesirable. I have just bought a ticket to go overseas and back from a large foreign online travel agency and I am not aware of having been asked to submit nationality to register an account or buy the ticket. Of course Thai airlines demand to know your nationality. Perhaps foreign ticket sellers will just charge everyone. It is not yet clear how this is going to work. Thai regulators may be unaware that nationality is not always demanded by overseas sellers of tickets to Thailand, since they are famous for shooting from the hip without doing any research.

1. The head of registrations at a Land Office refused to register land in my name without the original of the naturalisation certificate which I didn't have with me and I was a plane ride away from my home. Eventually she agreed, if I signed an essay scrawled by her certifying that I was indeed a Thai citizen and had not yet had my Thai citizenship revoked. A real PITA wasting an hour arguing with her and signing unnecessary docs. I told her to just take my ID card to the district office next door and put it in the smart card reader, if she didn't one, or call SB or the MoI but she refused to consider any of that. 2. BTS. A sales clerk refused to let me buy a 50% discount senior card (not sure if they are still issued) on presentation of my ID card. She said it was for Thais but not this kind of a Thai. I had to get her to call her supervisor who went red in the when he saw what his girl was doing and the huge angry queue behind me and told her to issue the pink card double quick. 3. At a sports club that practised dual pricing in membership prices. Same thing as BTS - not for this type of a Thai. I refused to pay more than the Thai fee and she said would take it up with her boss and, if he confirmed that white Thais had to pay the foreigner price, I could either pay the differential or get my money back. When I came back to pick up the card, nothing more was said about the white Thai rate. 4. At a tourist "attraction" in Hua Hin. I was told the Thai rate was only for Thai citizens born in Thailand which is obviously an absurd assertion, as there is no place of birth on ID cards. Ethnic Thais could easily be born overseas and white Thais could easily be born in Thailand. What they meant was that they didn't feel like giving the discount to white Thais. I asked her, if she was aware who had ountersigned my citizenship application and threatened a 112 prosecution but cut no ice. So my family just left and they made no money out of us at all but had the satisfaction of discriminating against a Thai on grounds of racial origin. As we were leaving, we heard them explaining to a Thai family what all the fuss was about - the farang tried to get the Thai price but we couldn't have that. Perhaps I have been unlucky. I have had other incidences, such as at the hospital where my son was born where I just could not get the message through that I was Thai after showing my ID card and tabien baan. The girl would not stop asking for my passport and WP for the birth certificate, until I got rather irritated and asked my wife to go and explain to her and the missus had a hard time getting it into her brain too. This wasn't an attempt at discrimination, just utter incomprehension that a white guy could be a Thai citizen. The Revenue Department also called the other day to ask me to bring my passport to check I had been in Thailand 180 days in the tax year to qualify for a tax rebate but didn't insist when I explained. I remember reading in other threads about farang fathers taking their Thai citizen look krung children to tourist attractions such as Safari World and being refused the Thai price for kids which is tricky, if they are not old enough to have ID cards and the mother is not with them to remonstrate. In this case, it is probably recommended to bring copies of their birth certificates or tabien baan, although that is not picture ID. Farang look krung kids may also be effectively discriminated against at places where they use a measuring stick to charge kids taller than 90cm. Look krung kids, especially boys, are likely to hit 90cm much younger than most Thai kids but nothing can be done about this.

This was true once but those lawyers are out of date. The Treaty was revised in 1966 and the right to own land was deleted at the request of the Thai side, while the US side raised no objections as they were of the opinion that US citizens and corporates at the time had little interest in owning land in Thailand, a country that looked like it could easily fall under communist rule. The US side was also persuaded by the Thai government that Thai small land holders, particularly upcountry, were a key bedrock against communism and that foreign land ownership could cause resentment and upset this dynamic. In the previous version of the treaty signed in 1920 US citizens were allowed to own land in Thailand, as long as Thais were allowed to own land in the states they came from. This provision had been insisted on by the Thai side because many US states had iniquitous provisions preventing Asians from owning land until the Supreme Court deemed these laws unconstitutional in 1958. There was a great deal of fear and resentment against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the US and states enacted laws to prevent Asians from owning land to discourage them from settling. Federal law also preventing them from gaining citizenship in the early 20th century which was used as the basis of these land laws. The residual wording in the Land Code re treaty ownership of land is still there, even though the other 12 foreign treaties that permitted foreign land ownership had all be revoked and not renewed by 1970. The US was the only foreign power that had bargaining power over Thailand by that stage and the Thais knew that, if they could get the US to give up it land ownership rights, the other countries would be forced to follow suit. The treaty owned land was grandfathered when the treaties were revoked and up until the late 80s there were still some notable treaty owned plots in Bangkok. HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank had lavish managers' houses in Sathorn and Wireless Roads respectively, although they head been divided into flats for senior management by the tme they fell under the wrecking ball. East Asiatic Co Ltd owned a prime property on the river that was originally godowns and is now Asiatique. There is probably more but the only remaining treaty owned land I am aware of today is the British Club on Silom Road which is owned by its ordinary members.

You're lucky you got the usufruct. Some land offices, particularly upcountry, will simply refuse to do it and the director of registrations has the discretion to do whatever he likes where foreigners are involved. How easy it would be enforce a usufruct against a hostile Thai wife or ex or her heirs, if she is deceased particularly if the property is in their village, would depend on individual cases. And yes you should do it before you are married, if possible, because the Civil & Commercial Code provides for annulment of a contract between husband and wife, if one of them can convince the judge they were taken advantage of by the other. Some can still get away with using Thai companies but this has been made much harder since the Interior Minister issued new instructions to land offices to try to prevent foreigners from using a corporate ownership structure. Basically the land officers were ordered to reject any transfers to companies that any overt or suspected foreign involvement. Thai nominees can be quizzed as to what is the business plan of the company and why do they want to invest their entire paid up capital in a resort villa with infinity pool.

They have thought up some quite comical procedures in recent years.

- It seems that to apply the foreigner must have held a WP for at least the three preceding years without break and with the same employer? Last I heard from someone who applied a few years ago was that you needed to be with the same employer for a year before applying. They may have extended this to 3 years. - And the WP must still be current on the date of lodging the PR application. Definitely true - But can the foreigner lodge the PR application then stop work and return the WP? Technically correct. You can give up work after applying but I would recommend trying to hang on till after the formal interview, if possible. If they find out you are no longer in employment, they might say you are no longer qualified. I would guess that technically the timing for all your information being correct is the date that Immigration accepts your application but someone might interpret this as the date of your formal interview. - Or can the foreigner now change jobs but with the new WP issued quickly for the new job? I don't see any problem with changing jobs after applying. However, again I would avoid drawing attention to that, if it happens before the formal interview. - Or does the PR applicant need to continue the same WP and still hold the same WP on the date of issue of the Certificate of Residence book etc., if the PR application is approved? No. There have been a lot of cases where the applicant had ceased employment or changed jobs by the time they went to collect their PR books, particularly during the period before the 2014 coup when PR applications were taking up to 7 years. As always, the best thing is to visit the Police Senior Sergeant Majors on the PR desk with queries. Some of the requirements are not set in stone and are subject to change when new management comes into Immigration or the Ministry of the Interior.

1. Re WP. A good idea but a huge stretch. Government thinking is not that PR effectively is close to citizenship without voting rights, as in many other countries. The Thai view of PR is simply foreigners who have been granted a visa of permanent validity, albeit subject to endorsements for travel. In every other respect they are still 100% alien. 2. You mean the Universal Healthcare Scheme not the SS (Social Security) scheme which is open to foreigners in employment. They stopped collecting the 30 baht under the Sarayudh government in 2006 because the administrative cost of collecting it was found be more than 30 baht. This scheme actually started off being open to anyone on a tabien baan (not sure if yellow books were accepted or not) including foreigners with PR. I was sent the original gold card and you should have received one too, since you have been a PR for over 24 years. A few years later they cancelled the right of foreigners to join the scheme but those already in were grandfathered. Later they obliged foreign workers from neighbouring countries to join the scheme because they realised that excluding them and leaving them untreated for infectious diseases was a health hazard to Thais. So you can see the thinking. Foreigners with PR are regarded as having enough money to pay for their own healthcare and are not a threat to Thais. So the government will never let them back into the scheme, having already made a calculated decision to kick them out.

As luck would have it the provision already exists in the Land Code - Section 96 bis, as amended in 1999, allows an alien who invests THB 40 million in certain approved investments is permitted with permission of the minister to own 1 rai of land for residential purposes in certain zones. So it could easily be updated by just a few changes of wording here and there. But wait a minute. The 1999 provision was effectively sabotaged by the failure to publish the enabling ministerial regulations for several years, the expiry of qualifying real estate investment mutual funds before the regulations were issued and the consequent failure to make any new authorised investments available. Thus, as far as I know, no foreigner has ever been able to purchase land under the current Section 96 bis, although many tried. Let's hope they have better luck next time, if they do update the amendment. But it seemed that the initial proposal as part of the new visa offerings to wealthy foreigners had been dropped for fear of a local backlash. Perhaps someone is talking out of turn by trying to revive this proposal. I expect realtors would support it but virtually no Thais who are not in the real estate sector.

Many of the minorities who have lived in Thailand for generations were initially left out in the cold because they were nomadic slash and burn agriculturalists who, through ill fortune, were not in their main village when Thai officials arrived unannounced to conduct the first consensus of 1956. Those who were unable to get this fixed by 1972 were officially made stateless along with their unborn descendants by Revolutionary Decree 337 which ended the automatic right to citizenship to all born within the Kingdom and restricted it to children born to a Thai father or to two permanent resident parents who were officially married or a Thai mother officially married to a permanent resident. The decree also revoked citizenship from those who had become Thai through birth in the Kingdom to alien parents who were not both PRs and even to children of Thai mothers with foreign fathers. There was a transitional provision that allowed them to re-register as citizens at the discretion of the minister, which was usually granted, but, of course, people out in the sticks were unaware of this or lacked the wherewithal to make the application and were stripped of their Thai citizenship, often without being aware of it until they applied for a new ID card. , The above injustices were fixed for those born to Thai mothers and foreign fathers, who were often left stateless by the 1972 decree, despite birth in Thailand, through the 1992 amendment to the Nationality Act that allowed citizenship to pass through the matralineal line. There have been many cabinet resolutions and legal amendments aimed at somewhat redressing the balance for minorities. However, as Scorecard correctly points out implementation is left to local officials without much effort to ensure consistent implementation.

Since Note 3 says you need to have an alien book or a letter of permission to travel outside the issuing district, they are entitled to ask for your alien book which, of course no self respecting Thai airline, hotel or bank will accept as proof of identity and will fall to pieces, if carried around with you. Potentially a Catch 22. I guess many district offices can't be bothered to order the blank cards with that wording or maybe they just pick up the first one that comes to hand. The whole system is ridiculous giving PRs a card that was designed for stateless minorities without PR and later used for foreign migrant workers after they signed the MOUs with neighboring countries. It wouldn't cost much more to print some blanks that say "Permanent Resident of Thailand" but then, of course, PRs fall between two stools and between the police and DOPA, as they are still under the 1927 regulations that require them to carry their alien books around everywhere. The police are legally required to issue the alien books which PRs are legally obliged to have and DOPA is legally required to issue the pink cards, but only if requested and the Note 2 that says the pink cards should always be carried is not actually a legal requirement for PRs. Overlapping regulations but the police have a senior claim with the alien books, which probably explains why nothing is done to rationalise the system and issue a new smart card to PRs and scrap the 100 year old alien books.

Until 1981 foreign wives of Brits (but not husbands) could just take their marriage certificate to the embassy and get a British passport immediately. A friend did this for his Thai wife. Now it is quite hard for Brits to take Thai wives to the UK even as tourists, let alone get them PR and citizenship but at least they are not deported to Rwanda. When I arrived in Thailand in the late 80s the old hands liked to tell me I had missed the boat because it had been wonderful in the 60s and early 70s but had since gone down the drain. I bet you were told that you should have got here in the 50s.

In the late 90s they still accepted self-certified documents for everything except company documents but, as I was the company signatory, I had to sign those too. Documents in English didn't have to be translated. No need for home country police record and nothing from embassy. Not knowing what was to come, I thought it was a huge burden. I remember going into the office at the weekend to sign all the documents my secretary had prepared and it seemed like the pile was nearly a metre high. Considering that Immigration seems to increase fees about once in a generation, now that it is 20 years since the last increase, there may well be another one around the corner. Not only the fees for all types of visas, including PR, went up the last time but the financial hurdles for retirement and retirement extensions got massive hikes too. I seem to remember the retirement extension lump sum in the bank requirement, which is now THB 800,000 and 1.6 million for a couple was only about 200,000 for a single and a couple before the increase. A hike in retirement and marriage extension hurdles would cause a lot of grief and departures. Another good reason to make the effort to get PR.

That scam sounds so unconvincing that it's amazing anyone would fall for it but there's one born every minute like the Thai lady who CFO of Essilor Thailand and fell for a Nigerian operated romance scam. She transferred 6 billion baht of Essilor's money to the scamsters over a couple of years and never met the fantasy American Chinese man she fell in love with. I didn't use an agent for my PR but I couldn't have done it without a very efficient secretary. You certainly need some help of some sort, if you very busy at work. I did use an agent, who came highly recommended by a friend who had used her for PR, for citizenship for a short while though. That was because in the pre-coup period it was taking me an inordinate amount of time without even getting to the interview stage and I got nothing from regularly calling the police or the ministry. She did earn her money which was I think 70k by going to the ministry and finding out that the police had made a stupid mistake in my application that could have got me rejected, if it had been spotted only at the interview stage. So I was able to have the file sent back to the police to be corrected which took six months, rather than be rejected. After that the agent started saying that she needed at least 500k to pay bribes and dropped me as a client after a very insulting row with Mrs Arkady when I refused. After I got the application corrected by the police and resubmitted to the ministry the application actually went quite smoothly and fast. So I was glad I didn't pay her and suspected that she would have kept the lot but claimed credit for success and I would have been none the wiser. Someone who used her after me more recently against my advice later complained he got nothing for the several hundred thousand in VIP fees he had paid her. Those were my experiences but things change and I don't doubt what Misty and others are saying. As Jayboy commented, if you choose to pay someone it is hard to know whether they have the right connections to make a difference. You have no recourse because there will nothing in writing saying it was anything more than a normal fee.

Actually it had just got harder and longer when you applied, as Thaksin's xenophobic interior minister, Purachai, with property in NZ and PR and children at school there made things harder. Previously Immigration more or less guaranteed those fully qualified would get their PR before window opened again the following year. I did get mine in 1997 in just under a year a few days before they re-opened the window but there were two earlier batches that got theirs around June and September. Six months was not considered unusual then. Purachai also introduced the language test and the required documentation got progressively harder. Then things got even worse in the mid to late 2000s and they started making people wait 5-7 years which was the situation when the 2014 coup happened and straightened things out. A number of people were rejected out of hand in that period without being given a reason. A Swiss guy sued the Purachai in the Administrative Court for rejecting him without cause. The case took about three years going through the courts and the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the rejection on the grounds that the Immigration Act gives the minister complete discretion to decide whatever he pleases. The Swiss guy would have done better to save his money and quietly reapply after Purachai was dumped by Thaksin for becoming too popular and thereby a threat to him.

Looking briefly through the history of Thai cannabis legislation I see there was a Cannibis Act of 1934 that was repealed on the promulgation of the Narcotics Act 1979 which included all parts of cannabis and hemp plants and their extracts for total prohibition in Category 5. Under the Canabis Act 1934 it was considered a medicinal herb and the law was all about licensing for sellers. Plus ça change. After 43 years of prohibition which apparently achieved nothing Thailand is now reverting to the status quo of 88 years ago.

I have only started looking into the legal aspects of cannabis in Thailand in the last few days out of curiosity. I have a question for those who know more about it. Is hashish considered an extract over 0.2%? I believe it is made of pressed cannabis resin. Therefore it is not strictly speaking an extract like cannabis oil. However, it hasn't appeared on any of the dispensary price lists I have seen which leads me to think it might be considered an extract. The resin in Thailand may just be left with the buds to increase their potency.

The Cannabis and Hemp Bill seems to fill in a lot of the details of licensing, registration for home growers & etc. Also the ban on sale to under 20s, pregnant and lactating women (how to know if they are in the early stages of pregnancy or lactating?). I read in one report that import of a small quantity for personal use carried on the person will be allowed. It will be interesting to see if that makes it through parliament into the final version. It is quite common in Thai legislation for a law to be promulgated or amended with enabling legislation to follow. That happens with every constitution with organic laws filling in the details later. It has also happened with amendments to the Land Code, Working of Aliens Act and many other laws. Sometimes this laws cannot be put into effect at all without the enabling legislation, e.g. the constitution. In other cases they can. The Working of Aliens Act stipulated that the list of reserved professions would be amended by a ministerial decree within 12 months but that amendment was never issued and the law was revoked and replaced by a Royal Decree without any revision to the list of reserved professions. In this case one could argue it was inappropriate to amend the Narcotics Act by deleting cannabis except extracts over 0.2% from Category 5 without the enabling legislation. However, I think we can assume this was a case of political expediency. Anutin had the power the amend the Narcotics Act with approval from the Narcotics Committee simply by issuing a one page ministerial order. The Cannabis and Hemp Bill had to be drafted at length, reviewed by the Juridicial Council and go through three House readings (it is has just passed the first reading). With the government coming to the end of its term and with the risk of early elections, there was and still is no guarantee the Cannabis and Hemp Bill would be passed before the next elections. Waiting for this Anutin would have risked going to the polls with his key election pledge unfulfilled. Cannabis legalization must have been the main attraction of the MoPH to Anutin. Who would have guessed back in 2019 he was going to have to deal with a pandemic? With the pandemic and vaccines starting to recede in the rear view mirror, at least for now, Anutin is coming through as a man who, for better or wore, delivers his promises which could put him in a good position to become a future PM.

A Google translation of the report on the bill from the Parliament website. https://www.parliament.go.th/section77/survey_detail.php?id=193 The Draft of the Marijuana Act, Hemp, B.E. .... proposed by Mr. Anutin Chanvirakul, member of the Council (representatives of the people and the committee, has the following important points: (1) stipulating that the Minister, with the approval of the Committee, has the power to prescribe marijuana, hemp (draft Article 6) (2) Prescribing the production of herbal products, drugs, food, cosmetics, medical devices Hazardous substances used in the household and public health by using cannabis, hemp as raw materials or components in the finished product of the producer shall be in accordance with the law on that matter (Draft Article 7). (3) to establish a committee called the “Hemp Cannabis Committee” comprising the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health; be the chairman of the board Secretary-General of the Food and Drug Administration Being a member and secretary (draft section ???? (4) to designate the Cannabis Hemp Committee to have duties and powers, for example, to formulate policies and measures to promote research and development on the use of cannabis, hemp both in medicine and industry, giving opinions, recommendations or recommendations to the Minister. or the licensor in the execution of this Act and the determination of tetrahydrocannabinol (tetrahydrocannabinal) in hemp, etc. (Draft Article 14) (5) stipulating that those wishing to produce, import, export or sell must obtain a license from the licensor (draft section 15). (6) requiring the person wishing to cultivate and planting must notify the information recipient who has issued the information receipt. to be able to proceed (draft article 18). (7) Assign officials, persons, organizations or agencies concerned to assess, examine and consider granting permission (draft Article 21). (8) prescribing that the fees under (8) (9) (10) at the rate of fees annexed to this Act shall be vested in the Food and Drug Administration (Draft Section 23). (9) to prescribe any licensee who violates or fails to comply with this Act give the licensor a warning or the licensor with the approval of the Commission suspends the license or revoke the license as appropriate in the case (draft section 25) (10) stipulates that the person whose license has been suspended may not apply for any license during the suspension period (draft section 26). (11) to prescribe any informer who violates or fails to comply with this Act; or ministerial regulations or announcements issued under this Act have the recipient notify him to give a warning or revoke the information receipt as appropriate in the case (draft section 27). (12) prohibiting any person from advertising unless receiving a license from the licensor (Draft Section 28). (13) stipulates that in case of violation Grant the licensor the power to order the advertiser to take any action such as editing the text, prohibiting the use of the text. Suspension of advertising, etc. (Draft Article 29) (14) assign competent officials to have powers, for example, to enter a place of production Place of import, place of export, place of sale or entry into a vehicle carrying marijuana, hemp, etc. (Draft Article 31). (15) stipulates that in the performance of duties The competent official must present the competent official identification card to the person concerned (draft section 32). (16) prescribing in the event that the licensor or the information receiver does not issue a license or information receipt Applicant or informant has the right to appeal in writing to the Minister within thirty days from the date of receipt of the notice of non-issuance of a license or a notification receipt (draft section 34). (17) to prescribe a licensee whose license has been suspended The license or the notification receipt has been revoked has the right to appeal in writing to the Minister within thirty days from the date of receipt of the notification of the suspension of the permit. Revocation of a license or a notification receipt, as the case may be (draft section 35) (18) prohibiting licensees from selling marijuana, hemp for consumption to persons such as persons under twenty years of age, pregnant women, lactating women, etc. (Draft Article 37). (19) Any person who produces, imports, exports, sells without permission under Section 18 paragraph one shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years. or a fine not exceeding three hundred thousand baht or both to be fined (Draft Article 38) (20) stipulates that any person who violates section 37 shall be liable to a fine not exceeding thirty thousand baht (draft section 40). people involved Ministry of Health Food and Drug Administration Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation ministry

Here is link to RG announcement and a Google translation. T_0009.PDF (soc.go.th) Announcement of the Ministry of Public Health About Controlled Herbs (Cannabis) 2016 Considering that cannabis is an herb that is worth studying or researching is important. economic for the benefit of protecting and promoting sustainable use By virtue of Section 4, Section 44, Section 45 (3) and (5) of the Act Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine, 1999, Minister of Public Health By the advice of the Committee on Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine Wisdom therefore announced as follows verse 1 Give cannabis or cannabis extract which is a plant in the genus Cannabis, is a controlled herb verse 2 Allowing persons aged twenty years and over to possess, utilize, look after, maintain Moving, distributing, controlled herbs in accordance with the regulations 1, except for the following acts: (1) public use by smoking (2) utilization for pregnant or lactating women (3) sales to people who are under the age of more than twenty years Pregnant or lactating women R verse 3 allow medical practitioners to Thai traditional medicine practitioner Practitioner of applied Thai traditional medicine practitioner in the field of traditional Chinese medicine and Folk healers according to the law on Thai traditional medicine professions can take advantage of herbal control according to 1 to their patients verse 4 Allowing patients under Article 3 to possess, move, take care of, store, use in the amount paid for for use for thirty days. verse 5 This announcement shall come into force from the day following the date of its publication in the Government Gazette. announce As of June 16, 2013 5 Anutin Charnvirakul Minister of Health

I was fined many years ago for failing to update my address and change my red book from my old police precint to the new one within 30 days. I think it was only 100 baht but may have gone up since then. Changing red book address is the same process as for tabien baan. You have to check out of the first district and then into the new one. In those days the police sent a large package containing the red book and god knows what else to the new police station which somehow took three weeks to go 14 km across Bangkok. It is probably still the same antiquated process with the police but changing address of tabien baan is now highly automated. I did it for my new born son from the hospital district and didn't have to fill in any forms or provide document copies, as in the past. They just scanned the documents they wanted into the computer.

Tomorrow's a big day for me, as I get to exercise my civic right to vote in an election for the first time in the Bangkok governor and councilor elections. It is also the first time in 9 years that these elections have taken place at all, which means there will be a lot of young voters also voting for the first time. You could argue that there is no one worth voting for but, in that case, it is still important to exercise civic rights and vote for whoever you think is the least bad candidate. For those who have also completed the 5 year cooling off period and are in Bangkok I am told you have to bring along your own blue biro to reduce transmission of COVID via BMA biros.

Absolutely right. Bring originals of all books. My experience was the MOI was happy to see the handful of books in my hand and just said that's OK without without looking at them. For the oath SB needed copies of them and I had to pay them something a small amount to make copies because they hadn't warned me they wanted them. So best to ask current practice. They also finger printed me again to see, if I was the same Arkady they had finger printed a few years earlier. There are only 3 religions on offer, Buddhist, Christianity and Islam and no option for a secular or humanist oath. If you are another religion or an atheist, just take the Buddhist one without making a fuss and show you respect the national religion. Mrs Arkady told them I wanted the Buddhist oath without giving me a change to answer, arguing that I was nominally a Christian but she had never seen me go to a church of my own volition, not including weddings, funerals or visiting churches of historic or artistic interest. My justification is that I attended enough daily and Sunday church services at boarding school to last for the rest of my life.

I am glad you mentioned these two vintage .38 Special Mid-Range pistols because I had never heard of them and they are quite interesting. They were designed for bulls eye match shooting and It seems the S&W 52 was made in the S&W Performance Center unit in the days when that meant rigorous fitting and testing of each model (nowadays Performance Center at S&W just means a small shop at the factory where they fix defective PC models made on the regular assembly line that have been returned for repair under warranty - a fat lot of use if you bought one overseas). I am sure it was the same case with the Colt but neither S&W or Colt employ any of those old world gunsmiths capable of this type of work any more. Making a pistol shoot rimmed revolver wadcutters is entirely feasible, if it is specifically designed for that round and is painstaking fitted and tested at the factory. Of course it can only take that WC ammo and cannot shoot round nosed .38s. As far as pistols shooting revolver ammo are concerned, Coonan makes a semi-auto pistol in .357 magnum. Of course it can only shoot that and can't use .38 Special. I have seen one in a Bangkok gunshop for around 230,000 baht. And the Desert Eagle .44 magnum is also available for, I guess, over 200k. I have fired the Desert Eagle and it is so heavy that there is little felt recoil. But these pistols that can only shoot expensive revolver ammo are not for me. However I would love to have a S&W Model 52. People who have them in good condition say they can still shoot an under 2" group at 50 yards and the ammo is readily available at any range in Thailand and relatively inexpensive. If you see one for sale here legally, let me know.