Not everyone has been simply illegally importing Western strains. Since the beginning of the legalization, many of the Thai farmers have taken the opportunity to stagger generations, and increase the yield and the size and THC and CBD of Thailand’s landraces.
While everyone else is doing the same thing they’ve always done—including paying electricity that’s more expensive than in the US, and importing lights into a country that has 12 hours of perfect strong, absolutely predictable sunshine for 280 days a year—is ridiculous.
The future for Thailand growing is outdoors. Not indoors. The electricity is too expensive for the average Thai to afford the product after all the input costs, and mainly the electricity, ridiculous imported, nasty fertilizers, and lights that cost more than my first car.
#TNGT Thais Need Ganja Too
Has anyone figured out how stupid it is to grow marijuana inside in the first subtropical country to allow for the full retail and manufacture, legally, with all of the fertilizers you want occurring naturally and cheaply, throughout the country?
And farmland being so cheap to rent or the lease for long leases? Or even seasonal leases?
Has anyone had the thought of trying to adapt to where they are?
Is it that important to have THC levels that are two to three percent higher grown indoors, when a master can double or triple or quadruple the yield with a few less percentage points THC? Quite frankly, the math doesn't work out.
And I don’t completely believe it anyway, because no one’s ever tried it. In fact the few guys who have tried it, like the Lion King here, have the THC levels that indoor growers have with the same strains for the Thailand landraces (except that his costs are a fraction of any indoor grower).
I’ve seen the results from an independent lab from the Thailand races—they’re getting 20THC from the Squirrel Tail and the Tiger tail. Outdoors.
He’s a master. And there are Thailand masters. They've just been in the jungle for years and years, the skills being passed down from generation to generation. He’s been doing it his whole life. Why aren’t we listening to people like him, while we’re listening to Canadians and Coloradoans and Northern California’s that are able to squeeze in one outside season per year (and all the Northern Cali strains, for the most part were grown outside first, and then after they were perfected inside, and then brought back outside to grow. If you think I’m wrong, it’s just way too easy to get caught with electric bills like that. And that’s public information. All the cops have to do is get a readout from the local power company, and look at the one house that’s consuming 4 to 5 times the amount of power, or more, of its neighbors.
In and of itself, no, A whopper of an electric bill not enough for a warrant, but it's a good piece of the puzzle on the way to getting a warrant on your ass! But more importantly, it’s enough to put the cops onto you—or infinitely worse, for them to turn you over to the DEA. And then you’re fucked because they got those parabolic mics, and those microphones that bounce off windows, so even if you don’t see them outside, all they have to do is hit the laser beam against the window in your house and they can hear every word you say…And let me explain something else to you if you don't understand the way American law enforcement works, especially at the federal level. If they spend $1 on an investigation, they are going to bring charges on someone. Regardless of how ridiculous those charges might turn out to be, how wrong the DEA was about the size of your operation, etc, if they spend any money whatsoever on the investigation, they had better bring charges—or their boss is going to pull their large intestines out through their assholes. This is when they pick the poor black guys or the poor Mexican guys, so that they'll have a public defender with 130 other clients, so at a minimum they can hit the guy with a plea bargain and put them in a federal prison for a few years.
Once the DEA’s on you, they’re making charges. You might lose you might win, but they’re going to bring charges.
So all the California stuff was done outside.
Canada and Colorado, the outdoor season’s too short. You can still ski into March and April in Colorado! And forget about Canada! These places have never really been able to fool around with the Thailand land races because they take too long to grow! They were able to do it in Mexico, but not north of the border. You can't have a 10-to-14-week growing season in Canada. Not outside.
So why is everyone doing indoors? Number 1, the rents are much higher for indoor growing. Number 2and most importantly, the electricity bills are out of control. Number 3, twelve-hours on and twelve-hours off of beautiful, super strong sunshine for fantastic photosynthesis can't be replicated with lights!
You think you can because of the math, but that’s only the lights hitting the top part of the leaves and the top part of the plants. Maybe the middle angle, maybe you're getting it down to the base. But unless you have a room that looks like the holodeck from Star Trek, you can’t get the entire tree at that strength unless you use a ridiculous amount of lights and an even more ridiculous amount of electricity.
Also, these lights are incredibly expensive. And importing them makes them more expensive. They break easily during transport—that’s another thing. And the insurance is not great unless you want to use a shipper and insurance that is something about the cost of the price of your left hand.
And then the electricity! Thailand electricity is more expensive than it is in most states in the United States.
I went to a dispensary that was in my neighborhood, which has no white people. No Indians either, nobody but Thais and Burmese and Muslim Thais, and some Sino-Thai. I’m technically located in Bangkok, but I know of two other farang within 10km radius that might live here, and you never, ever see one walking around.
And the price per gram in the local store was the cheapest at 500 baht per gram to 600 baht per gram.
In a completely Thai neighborhood.
I don’t know if you have any friends between college age and early thirties (and let’s call that prime marijuana smoking age for young people—I’m not talking about tourists here, I’m talking about average Thailand professionals).
A good salary for them, from 22 to 32 years old, is anything over a 35,000 THB a month. This is about $1,000 US dollars, so 500 THB about $16-17 per gram.
This is way too expensive for them to afford.
Also, it goes against the “you first” and “enjoy together” culture.
Ironically, 500 baht to 600 baht is about the same cost as buying the big bottle of Johnnie Walker Red plus mixers for you and all your friends, for an entire night.
Or you can sit in front of your computer, and smoke a gram by yourself. This is anti-Thai anti-South East Asian behavior. Thais and Laos and Khmer like the sitting-in-a-circle party on the ground with food and booze more than we do! (Even if we had chairs! There's still more into it than we are!) Smoking a gram with one or two other people—not Thai. Not their culture.
(I mean these poor kids! They can’t smoke joints…and forget about blunts! The pot is way too expensive for that! Even back home, nobody knows what a blunt is except fucking rap stars because no one else can afford to put $300 worth of pot into a blunt! Which is a shame, because a blunt is the perfect “you first” and “enjoy together” method of delivery for a group of people smoking pot. But there’s no way. Not at these prices!)
Is this what the growers came here for? That’s why they’re already making half or less of the revenue that they were making when this first started! If you don’t believe me, go ask them. I’m sure at least some of the employees will tell you when their manager isn't around, because the first thing scumbag managers do is cut salaries of Asians.
Everyone's waiting for the new law to come out to see what’s going to happen. You will see that before the new law comes out, dispensaries are going to go bankrupt and run out of business.
If these dispensaries are making half of what they made a few months ago, they’re lucky! Most of them are making a fraction. I know this because I'm in the business. These are my clients. Because there’s only so much the tourists can smoke, And we have left the high season for the hot season… But this is still better than the rainy season. That will be the real months where dispensaries go under.
And some of the tourists get upset! A’rom see’ah mak! They come here from the States or the EU or Australia, and they have to pay the same or more for hybrid strains they can just smoke at home?
One of my best friends just moved out to New Mexico. He's paying the exact same price per gram as the prices in the outlying dispensaries of Bangkok. Forget about those Asoke/Suckhumvit-rent shops… these are the outline shop prices.
What’s the answer? Learn to grow outside.
Use the Thai masters. And promote the government about making Thailand specific strains of Indicia-Sativa hybrids that are affordable (and legal) not just the tourists, but to the other 72 million people that live here. #TNGT
Bringing the Thai government in on this is the answer. If you look at your license, and this is the standard retail and manufacture license for up to 500 plants, you will notice that the only words in English are cannabis sativa In the first or second sentence of the license. If you have a translated, which no one seem to do because there was so excited to get it, I guess?
Any hybrid or any indicia grown in Thailand is illegal. Prima facie—on its face. So are the seeds. The only legal marijuana in Thailand is the genetic Thailand landraces that are 100% cannabis sativa. It's specifically states this on the license to the exclusion of the word “indicia” anywhere.
Everyone wants something from this. And the Thai government wants badly needed tax revenue. And they're the perfect country to start doing it. But something's got to shift. Making marijuana that's only affordable to Westerners on vacation is not the answer. Making marijuana affordable to a country with 72 million people, is the answer. And to be growing it outside so that it's affordable.
When Plook Ganja (The Thai government marijuana app from the Ministry of Health, sub department of Complimentary and Traditional Medicine) was first offered in the iStore and in the Playstore, the system crashed because there was 30 million downloads! 30 million! You don't think locals want to smoke pot? You don't think there's a huge market for it and a huge tax base?
If this is done right, everybody wins. Even if it's not done right but it's not just royally fucked up, everyone wins.
Also, and you heard it here. And you've heard it from me in many places and times: When the new laws come out, they are going to string up a few non-compliant Western grower/dispensary owners and a few non-compliant Thai growers/dispensary owners for 20 plus year jail sentences, just to advertise the new law.
Why spend any money on public relations to make the parts of the new law clear to everyone? When you can just sacrifice the lives of three or four people for not following the laws in the first place.
Does This government strike you as a government that would have a problem with putting already non-compliant growers and retailers into prison to scare everyone into following the law, instead of having to spend hundreds of millions of Baht on campaigns to try to get people to follow the laws? Please.
Already, there are so many aspects of the current law that are not being followed. Any of these big growers and dispensary owners could get strung up right now for what they're doing and not doing. And they don't realize it because all of the public “laws” on the subject have been filtered through the Bangkok Post and the Thai Tiger, who have missed big chunks. There is a lot more than not selling to kids under 20, and pregnant and lactating women! There's a lot more to not selling any extracts that are over 0.2% THC. There's quite a bit of paperwork associated with it, that no one seems to be doing and no one seems to be aware of. And the police will be ready to charge you when they want to charge you; use you as an example when they want to use you as an example because you didn't follow the laws in the first place.
This is another thing that's driven me crazy. You come to a country run by a military junta that's just legalized marijuana, and you don't hire local counsel to make sure you're in strict compliance? (I'm not complaining about not getting enough business! In fact, I'm getting more cannabis business than I can deal with, actually. And my clients are in complete adherence with the current laws (When and if they listen to me) and also with what I predict will be the future of laws. But as important, they're ready to move on the drop of a dime to become compliant.
The next words for the Thailand pot industry will be “compliance” and “punishment”.
Contact Jack at jmazzola@napabusinesssolutions.com or WhatsApp 098-826-3779 or at www.NAPABusinessSolutions.com