reader Posted April 10, 2023 Posted April 10, 2023 From Time It’s a Monday in Bangkok, the Thai capital, which means all civil servants by custom don their tan military-style uniforms, and so the arm enthusiastically proffering the “ganja oil” is immaculately pressed with golden epaulets at the top. Anutin Charnvirakul, Thailand’s Health Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, unscrews the brown vial’s lid and takes a deep sniff before breaking into his trademark grin. “Cannabis has been long stigmatized as a narcotic,” he tells TIME. “But it is no more addictive than tobacco. I consume traditional medicine droplets [of ganja oil] to help me sleep.” Until last summer, Thailand had some of the world’s harshest drug laws. Possession of many of the products laced with cannabis derivatives that Anutin arranges on his desk in Bangkok’s Health Ministry building—such as facial scrub, tea, massage balm, hand sanitizer spray, as well as CBD oil—would have then risked a long jail sentence. But Anutin’s Bhumjaithai Party, which is today the junior partner in a military-backed ruling coalition, competed in national elections in 2019 on decriminalizing the plant, ostensibly to reduce prison overcrowding and foster a budding hemp industry. On June 9, marijuana was decriminalized and a resurgent cannabis culture has since engulfed the Southeast Asian nation of 70 million, with dispensaries peppering both its sprawling cities and chicken coop villages. The Thai cannabis market is projected to reach $9.6 billion by 2030. “Thailand is actually the [world’s] most suitable location to grow quality cannabis,” says Anutin, a former engineer who entered politics in 1996. “We have so much knowledge from traditional medicine in Thailand and the use of cannabis extractions can cure so many illnesses and [alleviate] symptoms.” Thailand goes to the ballot box again on May 14, and Anutin is hoping the buzz around cannabis legalization can propel him to become the nation’s next leader. He is promising another broad swath of reform, including a three-year debt moratorium for farmers; subsidies for green technology adoption; and a $3 billion land bridge spanning southern Thailand’s Isthmus of Kra. Yet success in May’s ballot may hinge on an even more seismic undertaking. The election will once again pit the populist political machine of exiled billionaire Thaksin Shinwatra against the Bangkok-based elite power nexus centered on Thailand’s military, judiciary, and royal palace. Parties backed by Thaksin—a policeman turned media mogul, who lives overseas after being convicted of corruption (charges he denies)—have won every election since 2001 but have been ousted twice by the military and three times by the courts. With the Thaksin-aligned Pheu Thai Party set to win yet another landslide, observers fear a renewed cycle of deadly street protests and military intervention. “A Pheu Thai prime minister would not be acceptable to the establishment,” says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, associate professor of political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University Anutin is one of the few figures capable of bridging Thailand’s yawning political schism between the Bangkok-based elite and Thaksin’s heartland in the populous, rice-farming northeast. Bhumjaithai has welcomed 34 influential defectors from other parties in recent months and a decent showing at the ballot box could see Anutin thrust into the top job as the head of either a military-backed or majority Pheu Thai government. Continues at https://time.com/6264782/anutin-charnvirakul-thailand-prime-minister-election-interview/ alvnv and stevenkesslar 2 Quote
