In Bangkok these days, it is hard not to notice the weed dispensaries catering to tourists that have multiplied since the government decriminalised the drug in 2022.
Many of them take advantage of lax regulations to openly sell visitors dried cannabis flowers imported illegally from Canada or the United States. On a recent afternoon, one shop advertised its pungent offerings – weed strains with names such as “Ice Cream Cake” and “Lemon Cookies” – as “California’s finest”.
“Smart money’s going to come in,” Mr Sirasit Praneenij, a co-chief executive of the cannabis farming company Medicana, said recently at an indoor cannabis farm in outer Bangkok. He was wearing a white lab coat and standing near grow rooms packed with LED lights, advanced watering systems and row after row of young cannabis plants.
Thailand once had such harsh laws, too. But when the government removed cannabis flowers from its prohibited narcotics list in June 2022, a domestic industry appeared overnight, starting with “weed trucks” in tourist districts. There is uncertainty, too, over what Thailand’s cannabis regulations will look like. Mr Srettha Thavisin, the Prime Minister elected by the Thai Parliament last Tuesday, told reporters before a May general election that his political party, Pheu Thai, did not want “full cannabis legalisation” and would support use only for medical purposes.
“People now see clearly that you’re not going to put Pandora back in the box,” said Mr James Porter, CEO at Siam Green, a dispensary that has raised around US$1 million from investors in Bangladesh, India, Thailand and the US. Mr Or Engler, ACT’s CEO, said the plan is to begin harvesting about 120kg of dried flowers a month, starting in October, and to become a “serious”, long-term player in the Thai market, even if retail weed prices fall further.
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