Thailand is the first nation in Asia to get marijuana off the list of prohibited substances and permit people to cultivate marijuana at home.
This is a significant policy change in a nation that has been known for its strict control of drugs. However, the Thai government hopes the change will improve the health and tourism industry.
In January, Thai authorities announced they had removed cannabis from the officially-approved list of prohibited substances leading to what many have described as the de facto legalisation.
About 4,000 inmates being held in jail for cannabis-related offences will be released shortly, and their records from these crimes will be erased, according to the Department of Corrections.
The Health Minister of Thailand and Vice PM Anutin Charnvirakul, who was Thailand’s Health Minister last month, took to Facebook to announce his plan to distribute 1 million cannabis seeds to the general public.
“It is an opportunity for people and the state to earn income from marijuana and hemp,” the author wrote, along with a photograph of a chicken that has been cooked and coated with cannabis.
“Roasted marijuana chicken, 300 baht ($12) per piece. Anyone can sell it if they obey the law,” Mr Anutin said.
“This is the future of Thai cannabis.”
Thai authorities are encouraging the culinary use of cannabis.(Facebook: Anutin Charnvirakul)
Mr Anutin, who first declared the new policy in 2021, announced that households would then be able to plant as many as six cannabis plants to supply the plant to research facilities, public hospitals and facilities, or even for use in the manufacture of cosmetics or food.
According to law, every marijuana extract must be a THC (THC) -the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana — concentration less than 0.2 per cent.
Large-scale growers need permission from government officials.
Kitty Chopaka, a Bangkok-based cannabis business owner, will start selling cannabis-related flowers in her store on Saturday following the plant’s removal officially taken off Thai authorities on the list of controlled substances.
Ms Chopaka, who sells Gummies infused with terpenes, told the ABC that the new changes would mean the product could “become as free as garlic, as chilli”.
“But that doesn’t mean there are no rules. It just means that the rules are in process … depending on how long it will take in parliament,” she added.
A complete law to regulate cannabis is still to be passed by the legislature.
Kitty Chopaka’s shop sells terpene-infused gummies.(ABC News: Mazoe Ford)
Ms Chopaka noted that hemp and cannabis businesses that were privately owned and established in recent times had not been included in the Thai stock exchange, which hindered these businesses’ ability to draw investors.
The infrastructure for extracting cannabis was costly and cost between 100 and 300 million dollars ($4-12 million), which meant that the expansion of the industry and the export market was deterred, she claimed.
“As much as I whine about all the rules and the regulations that are sometimes not fair, there are things that have to be done,” Ms Chopaka said.
In a Facebook post in March, Mr Anutin stated that the policy was geared towards “health and medical use, not on entertainment”.
He stressed that in contrast to smoking cigarettes and alcohol, cannabis has benefits when “used wisely”, and the change in law did not aim at allowing cannabis to be used to intoxicate.
He said that penalties for creating “public nuisance” with recreational usage would remain in place.
If they are reported to authorities, offenders could be sentenced to up to 3 months imprisonment or fines up to 25,000 Baht.
“A gift for the masses’
Like many of its neighbours, Thailand has long imposed severe penalties for the possession and use of cannabis and other drugs, despite the long tradition of local use of cannabis for cooking and medicinal purposes.
However, the kingdom became the first nation in South-East Asia to legalise medical cannabis in 2018.
The Thai government at the time explained the decision as a “New Year’s gift” to the Thai people.
Thailand’s Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul speaks alongside government mascot Dr Ganja at the opening of Bangkok’s first official medical cannabis clinic in 2020.(Reuters: Jorge Silva)
The authorities are hoping Thai business owners and farmers will profit from the cultivation of the plant and cash in on a growing global legal cannabis market estimated to reach $US91.5 billion ($175.5 billion) in 2028, as per Grand View Research, a San Francisco-based business.
In the year 2020, the government established an initial cannabis-based clinic in Bangkok after it approved the application of cannabis extracts to treat ailments like epilepsy, anxiety, and cancer.
Jirachi Kuttanam, A single mother fighting breast cancer, uses cannabis to relieve pain and tea, drinking it or smoking it.
She claimed it took “way too long” for Thailand to remove cannabis from its list as a controlled drug.
“I’m so happy I don’t have to hide anymore to buy or use it,” Ms Kuttanam, who plans to plant cannabis on her own, revealed to ABC.
“It (the illness) is painful, and I don’t want to take painkillers all the time,” she stated. She added that cannabis improved her sleep and helped her maintain a healthy appetite.
“It’s not painful at all after you use it.”
Ms Kuttanam stated that the government must inform the general public on how to grow marijuana properly to cultivate it on their own instead of paying big-scale growers.
The corruption issue is a source of concern.
A YouGov poll conducted in March 2022 revealed that 76 per cent of Thais were aware of commercially-available cannabis products, while nearly half of them had tried an item containing cannabis over the last two years.
Ms Chopaka said she was excited to pay her taxes for sales following the delisting.
However, Sarana Sommano, an associate professor of agriculture at Chiangmai University, warned the changes do not mean Thailand is embracing the recreational use of cannabis.
People attend a 2021 cannabis expo in Thailand’s Buriram province.(Reuters: Athit Perawongmetha/File)
She claimed that while certain ministers had commented about cannabis usage for the general public, it was “misleading”, and the comments were made to promote political reasons since “it was approaching the end of the government term”.
The next Thai national election is scheduled for 2023.
Dr Sommano claimed that the current system for registering cultivators was susceptible to corruption. She also said that although she was in favour of cannabis for medicinal reasons in general, she believed “the nation does not gain anything from this at all”.
She added that companies had to pay for permission to cultivate cannabis, that the costs were “not cheap”, and permits were required to be renewed.
Corruption remains a significant issue in Thailand, ranked in the top 110 of 180 nations on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for 2021.
“So, who would benefit from all this?” Dr Sommano said, noting that the plans for controlling and “misuse” of cannabis remained in the dark.
Recreational cannabis use is permitted in certain US states, including Canada, Uruguay, South Africa, Mexico and the Australian Capital Territory.
It has been legal to own the maximum amount of 50 grams and cultivate and consume cannabis inside one’s home in the ACT since 2019.
Medical marijuana prescriptions across Australia Meanwhile, prescriptions for medical marijuana have risen significantly over the last few years.