About a year ago I posted an article discussing the burgeoning cannabis scene in Thailand. It seemed to me then that the nascent juggernaut weed economy was unlikely to sustain much more continued growth, and I queried whether we’d start to see dispensaries falling by the wayside as the novelty of legalization wore itself out, or whether the investment supporting them might soon implode under its own weight. But now, some fourteen months later, it’s clear that reports of its death were greatly exaggerated and that the party is still very much on, so here’s a brief update comparing last year’s prognostications against today’s reality.
Let’s start with the politics. I closed out my 2023 article by musing whether the government in place at that time would even remain in power to see through the proposed reforms that had by then been announced. Following the Constitutional Court’s dismissal of former Prime Minister Sretta Thavisin in August 2024 because of an ethical violation, Thailand’s House of Representatives elected Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the Kingdom’s 31st (and youngest ever) PM. The Bhumjaithai Party oversaw the decriminalization of medical marijuana in 2022, only to then be blamed for what some journalists called an explosion in recreational use as weed shops mushroomed across the country amid a lack of regulation, prompting the Pheu Thai Party to oppose its continued legalization during the 2023 election campaigns. Former Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew, who had gone on record proclaiming that “using cannabis for recreational purposes must be forbidden” was replaced in April 2024 by Somsak Thepsuthin, who remains in place as of this writing and inherited a number of political hot potatoes including the controversial reform legislation that was by then circulating amongst the cabinet. Still with me?
A new draft bill unveiled by the Ministry in September 2024 removed a proposed provision that had explicitly declared recreational use illegal while maintaining support for continued cannabis legalization for medicinal and business purposes. As things now stand cannabis is not to be re-listed as an illegal narcotic but is slated for proposed new licensing requirements that will allow existing dispensaries to remain in place, at least for the time being, thus eliminating threats to previous investments in the industry and preventing (at least temporarily) the wild card of government intervention. The bill, which was approved by the cabinet in October, has not yet been presented to the parliament and thus remains subject to further amendment. The overall legislative process in Thailand remains slow and opaque and it’s unclear, at best, whether or when the draft legislation may progress further.
In the meantime, there’s been no slowdown in the number of dispensaries operating throughout the country. Although the official number of registered outlets remains fluid with the count down from 12,000+ in 2023 to a reported 9,400 in news reports last month, unofficial estimates are that there are instead more than 20,000 shops and stores across Thailand where recreational cannabis can be purchased over the counter. Anecdotally, it seems that every man and his dog on Sukhumvit Road has cleared space amidst their card tables of wares for a few jars of weeks-old Runtz and Lemon Haze. Mobile vans lined up along Soi 11 do a brisk business every night, except Mondays when they’re all “closed”. It remains the fact that not everyone selling cannabis in Thailand is legally authorized to do so.
With the exception of the larger tourist shops between Asoke and Thong Lor, where the price of a single gram can still hover between THB 700-1000 or more, wholesale and retail prices have by and large dropped across the board and locally-grown product is now holding its own against overseas imports, as farmers here continue to up their game considerably after learning that a week or two of extra time and care for curing will go a long way towards better quality product that generates repeat sales for them. While online sales are no longer permissible, many dispensaries send daily-updated menus of available product to their repeat customers by means of WhatsApp or Telegram chat groups, and electronic fund transfers and motorbike deliveries mean customers don’t even have to leave their homes to maintain fresh stocks of their favorite strains.
Inside the dispensaries, over-the-counter cash transactions remain predominant, with mobile telephones and handwritten notepads favored by shop operators over credit cards and computerized inventories. VAT is never imposed or collected on sales and volume discounts are commonplace. Regular users have become more discriminating and faithful concerning their source suppliers, while tourists continue to flood towards the larger outlets in Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, and elsewhere to gawp and pose for selfies and videos that they send to friends back home or post onto social media platforms.
Foreign-owned and operated shops remain abundant, with an increased number of Russians and Israelis in particular having decided that they’d rather live on a beach with their girlfriends and sell weed in Thailand instead of being drawn into armed conflicts and risk getting killed back home. Although certain restaurants and hotels in the Bangkok metropolitan area where I live now have prohibitions against using cannabis in or on their premises, the air on the streets remains ambrosial or rancid depending on one’s view; it’s difficult to go a day without catching a strong whiff around you as you go about your business. Although cannabis smoke in public remains technically classified as a nuisance subject to criminal penalties and a fine of up to THB 25,000, there have been no published instances of anyone having ever been formally charged; enforcement is instead typically undertaken on the spot by opportunistic (and underpaid) police on a more informal and smaller basis.
And while cannabis reform still makes for good press and fills column inches for newspapers, there’s been a notable drop-off since 2022 of ‘reefer madness’ style reports of children falling sick after unknowingly ingesting their parents’ edibles, or of truant teenagers found wandering the streets or committing crimes while under the influence. In fact, for most Thais the general attitude towards decriminalization is by now pretty much “mai pen rai”; it’s fair to say there’s been no overwhelming hue and cry voiced by the citizenry to change anything.
Indeed, the third edition of the Asia International Hemp Expo scheduled for 27-30 November at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center highlighting developments and technology for planting, extracting, and processing cannabis, with the aim of facilitating the establishment of production bases in Thailand is expected to draw roughly two hundred exhibitors and more ten thousand attendees from all over the world. Given Prime Minister Shinawatra’s estimation during a speech in September that that the hemp/cannabis industry may generate roughly 200 billion baht in annual income, there’s not much realistic incentive at this point to put the genie back in the bottle.
© Frank Rittman 2024. All Rights Reserved.
