2025 Cannabis in Thailand: New Drug War Averted; Economic Boom & Alternative Medicine Revival Highly Probable
Anti-cannabis narrative - that cannabis kills & nobody likes it; that the plant's harms outweigh its benefits ; that incarceration for production and possession is preferable policy - abandoned.
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Thailand, The Great Cannabis Outlier In Asia, Set To Remain On Top
Thailand decides not to re-criminalize cannabis as it eyes $1bn medicinal industry
Thailand will regulate cannabis for medicinal use instead of re-listing the plant as a narcotic, the deputy prime minister said on Tuesday, in the government's U-turn on its previous policy.
Prime minister Srettha Thavisin had vowed to make cannabis illegal by the end of 2024, just two years after Thailand became one of the first countries in Asia to decriminalise marijuana.
Deputy prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the government would now discuss plans for a draft legislation to regulate the cannabis industry.
Mr Thavisin in May said cannabis would be re-listed as a narcotic but now has agreed that legislation was the appropriate step to take, according to the deputy prime minister.
The local and international media has been happy to assist in the manufacture of a cannabis horror show in Thailand. First, stories of spontaneous psychotic episodes. Then death by cannabis and junk science with propositions of cannabis’ highly addictive properties.
Followed by musty logical fallacies insisting that A) since all abusers of hard drugs consumed cannabis, cannabis leads to hard drugs and b) if minors smoke pot when it’s illegal, they will smoke more pot if it is made legal.
The culmination of the collusion between the media and the Srettha administration is a narrative devoid of data, incapable of responding to objections of the most rudimentary common sense.
It is a vain attempt to place cannabis into a pre-scientific frame. Had the long-term mission of recreating cannabis crime been successful, it would have come at the expense of patients whose quality of life depended on cannabis prior to decriminalization, as offenders would have been aggressively pursued and punished.
Successful criminalization would have neglected the negative impact on tourism, the food industry and international trade at a time when Thailand, histoicalky the economic.leader of middle income economies of Southeast Asia, .lags behind Vietnam and Indonesia in all three of these sectors .
The story of cannabis in Thailand has just begun; its legalization regime is like a new startup, and the "U-Turn" to crime-creation, far from being a dead end, is revealed as a false start — an ill conceived and indecisive step along a loosely scripted road map.
Thailand Plans to Regulate Cannabis Through Bill, Minister Says
Thailand will seek to regulate its fast-growing cannabis industry through legislation, potentially shelving a plan to reverse the country’s landmark cannabis decriminalization policy following opposition from within the ruling coalition.
The government will discuss plans for a draft bill to regulate the cannabis industry and wider uses of the plant, or political parties may submit their drafts to the parliament, said Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of Bhumjaithai Party, the second-biggest group in Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s government.
Yes, Thailand is a conservative society that is loathe to tolerate the social pathologies that accompany lax drug laws trending in the US.. However, the Thai preference for social order does not equate to an acceptance of the cannabis derangement syndrome that spread across the West during peak drug war years.
The stigma of cannabis as a forbidden drug is far less prevalent in Thailand than it has been in the West if only because of its use in Thai traditional medicine and common appearance in local gardens for generations.
Anutin 'puzzled' by cannabis U-turn
Mr Anutin said he had told Mr Srettha the proposal -- which has been forwarded to the Narcotics Control Board (NCB) for further deliberation on July 23 -- lacks convincing proof which justifies the re-criminalisation of the plant.
Mr Anutin said he was puzzled by the government's U-turn on the issue, noting the committee which is pushing for cannabis to be relisted as a narcotic is made up of the same people who wanted cannabis to be decriminalized two years ago.
He called on the committee members to stick to their principles and explain to Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin why cannabis deserves to be taken off the narcotics list.
A source close to Anutin said his Bhumjaithai Party’s parliamentary push will be to re-establish the public’s pro-cannabis consensus of 2018 and 2022. Once a more accurate portrayal of public opinion is in place, legislative progress follows, he said.
The media assisted in the manufacture of the Prime Minister’s narrative that can be summed up as, “The problem with drugs is widespread.” The remark is a common ploy among cannabis prohibitionists: it expresses a stigma-ridden, casual inclusion of cannabis in the category of the most lethal street drugs.
Relisting “Will Cause “27-Billion-Bhat Loss”
The government’s plan to put cannabis back on a list of illegal drugs will cause a 27-billion-baht loss to the local cannabis industry, said Wisan Potprasat, CEO of the Cannabis Medical Industrial Estate Association of Thailand.
Mr Wisan, who is also the president of the Community Enterprise Network of Western Herbal Alliances, which is the largest licensed cannabis grower in the country, was commenting on the Public Health Ministry’s committee plan to relist cannabis as a narcotic.
Trade talks and agreements with cannabis-friendly neighbors will go a long way to restoring a positive reflection of public opinion when it comes to cannabis decriminalization and the need for smart regulation.
South Africa, New Zealand, Brazil, Columbia, Malaysia and the Philippines could quickly evolve into a trading bloc of middle-income nations that could rally around Thailand and join a coalition of cannabis-friendly nations; the size of the GDP, coupled with their desire to grow into wealthy economies, mean that a robust cannabis marketplace can truly move the needle in terms of expanding the tax base, growing good jobs and providing affordable healthcare.
Victory of Conscious Cannabis Consumption Over Make-Believe Anti-Cannabis Consensus
The Prime Minister has no mandate to re-criminalize cannabis, and the broken record that keeps playing '"80 percent of Thais want cannabis illegalized" is little more than pre-fab Musak recorded by a government-funded studio.
Prime Minister Srettha's campaign used anti-cannabis rhetoric long before they financed a poll that told them what they wanted to hear once they became the government-appointed leaders of the coalition.
In contrast, Deputy Prime Minister Anutin’s perspective represents a common sense approach to cannabis that is easy to identify in Thailand. It shows up for instance in the reaction of folks in his home province to the incendiary anti-cannabis language that the Prime Minister's party used to stir up the crowd on the campaign trail back in October 2024.
Srettha's party line on cannabis - that the plant should be inaccessible because Thai parents don't want their kids to grow up in a society "where drugs are everywhere" - did not play well in BuriRam. The messenger, the daughter of Thaksin, the Prime Minister who self-exiled after a brief tenure as the infamous drug warrior Prime Minister in the early 2000s, was booed off the stage and the campaign was effectively run out of town.
The Take Away From The Victory of Light Over Darkness: Cannabis Enlightenment Must Be Built Into New Institutions
The world will continue to be visited by mind viruses that implant in their hosts the universal dogma that drugs are bad, cannabis is a drug, therefore cannabis is bad and those who use it should suffer grave consequences. The antidote is not simply education.
The immune system that fights against assaults from cannabis stigmatization is as much a set of practices as it is a cognitive grasp of its harms and benefits.
Investments in multidisciplinary cannabis research and aggressive pursuit of cannabis trade agreements can fast-track the establishment of a practical cannabis ecosystem with layer upon layer of research and innovation, making it resistant to destructive interventions.
Thailand is in great need of consistent and reliable data collection to fend off unscientific attacks. Finally, as the conference capital of Asia, it should have no trouble ramping up a robust cannabis conference regime that attracts the best minds in cannabis from around the world.