Thailand Publishes Draft Regulations to Re-Ban Cannabis Buds

The government of Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Tuesday made good on its promise to craft regulations that will reclassify cannabis as an illegal narcotic.

Cannabis was illegal in Thailand until 2022, and the government swiftly came to regret legalizing it thanks to a massive surge of drug abuse.

The draft regulations released on Tuesday would classify cannabis buds as a “category five” narcotic effective January 1, 2025. Using other parts of the plant would remain legal.

The new rules did not specify a grace period for businesses to comply with the ban. This is a major hurdle because the Thai recreational marijuana industry exploded after the drug was legalized in 2022 and is now worth over a billion dollars. Tourist areas in Thailand are dotted with thousands of marijuana shops.

When Thai Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew discussed plans to impose stiff fines for marijuana sales in February, he said business owners would be given time to adjust and possibly convert themselves into licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, but the draft regulation did not include such an adjustment period.

Prime Minister Thavisin campaigned for office on a promise to ban recreational marijuana use, arguing that legalization did not work out as expected and noting that most of Southeast Asia has avoided decriminalization. Most of Thailand’s parties have come to support recriminalization, disagreeing mostly about how quickly it should happen.

“Drugs are a problem that destroys the future of the country. Many young people are addicted. We have to work fast, to confiscate assets and expand treatment,” Thavisin said last month, adding a call for stricter enforcement of the laws against harder drugs that were never repealed.

“I want the health ministry to amend the rules and re-list cannabis as a narcotic. The ministry should quickly issue a rule to allow its usage for health and medical purposes only,” the prime minister said.

Thavisin’s predecessor Prayut Chan-Ocha pitched marijuana legalization as a boost to tourism that would help Thailand recover from the coronavirus pandemic and, while the policy arguably delivered on that front, it also produced an explosion of recreational drug use among local youth. Thai marijuana use soared from about 2.2 percent of the young and middle-aged population to over 25 percent and they collectively consumed more than ten times as much of the drug as before.

A group of young Thai marijuana entrepreneurs told the L.A. Times on Thursday that the swift reversal of legalization was a “shock” that left their economic futures uncertain. 

One dispensary owner said he feared making pot illegal again would harm the tourist industry, since many visitors from places with strict drug laws like South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong come to Thailand so they can “smoke openly.”

Others pointed to the jobs that would be lost if cannabis is criminalized. The incredible growth of the marijuana industry after 2022 created a huge number of jobs and they tend to pay well because Thailand does not tax cannabis sales, so the profit margins of the industry are exceptionally high. Skilled marijuana harvesters can earn up to 36 percent more than the national average wage.

A final objection raised by cannabis defenders in Thailand is that some of the negative health effects ascribed to marijuana, such as increased crime and suicide rates, could more accurately be pinned on an influx of methamphetamines from Myanmar.

Drug cartels are flourishing amid the political instability that followed Myanmar’s coup, running wild through the border regions while ethnic militias battle junta troops. The cartels are pumping vast quantities of meth into countries across Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

“The news will say cannabis caused someone to attack an elderly man, but then it turns out that person was using other substances as well. This kind of sensational news coverage has been constant,” a Thai cannabis dispensary owner complained to the L.A. Times.