BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand legalized the cultivation and possession of marijuana as of Thursday, as a dream come true for an aging generation of pot smokers who remember the stitch offered by the legendary Thai Stick variety.
The country’s public health minister’s stated intention to distribute 1 million marijuana seedlings as of Friday has added to the impression that Thailand is becoming a country of weed wonders.
Some Thai advocates celebrated it on Thursday morning by buying marijuana in a cafe that had previously been limited to selling products made from parts of the plant that people do not love. The dozen people who showed up at the Highland Cafe were able to choose from a variety of outbreaks with names like Sugarcane, Bubblegum, Purple Afghani and UFO.
“I can say it out loud, I’m a cannabis smoker. I don’t need to hide like I did in the past when it was described as an illegal drug,” said Rittipong Bachkul, 24, the first customer of the day.
So far, it seems that there would be no effort to control what people can grow and smoke at home, other than registering to do so and declaring that it is for medical purposes.
“As for the government, its job is just to promote medical use. But it’s pretty clear that we’ve come a long way and we’re finally legalizing its use. The government understands that there are more pros than cons,” he told The Associated Press Rattapon Sanrak, longtime coffee co-owner and legalization activist.
For now, however, aspiring marijuana tourists may want to proceed with caution.
The Thai government has said it is promoting cannabis for medical use only, warning those who want to enlighten themselves for fun that smoking in public could still be considered a nuisance, subject to a possible 3-month sentence and a fine. of 25,000 Thai baht ($ 780).
And the extracted content, like oil, is still illegal if it contains more than 0.2% tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical that makes people high.
The state of marijuana is still in a considerable legal limbo because, although it is no longer treated as a dangerous drug, Thai lawmakers have yet to pass legislation to regulate its trade.
Thailand has become the first Asian nation to decriminalize marijuana, also known as cannabis or ganja in the local language, but it does not follow the examples of Uruguay and Canada, the only two countries to date. legalized recreational marijuana nationwide. base.
Thailand mainly wants to make a splash in the medical marijuana market. It already has a well-developed medical tourism industry and its tropical climate is ideal for cannabis cultivation.
“We should know how to use cannabis,” Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, the country’s leading marijuana promoter, said recently. “If we have the right awareness, cannabis is like gold, something valuable and should be promoted.”
But he added: “We will have additional notifications from the Ministry of Health, by the Department of Health. If it causes discomfort, we can use this law (to prevent people from smoking).
He said the government would rather “create an awareness” that would be better than patrolling to check people and use the law to punish them.
Some immediate beneficiaries of the change are people who have been imprisoned for violating the old law.
“From our perspective, a major positive result of the legal changes is that at least 4,000 people imprisoned for cannabis-related crimes will be released,” Gloria Lai, Asia’s regional director of the International Drug Policy Consortium, said in a statement. email interview.
“People facing cannabis-related charges will see them dropped, and money and cannabis confiscated from people accused of cannabis-related crimes will be returned to their owners.” Its organization is a network of civil society organizations around the world that advocate for drug policies “based on the principles of human rights, health, and development.”
However, economic benefits are at the heart of marijuana reforms, which are expected to drive everything from national incomes to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.
There is concern about whether the benefits will be distributed equitably.
One of the fears is that giant corporations could be unfairly served by the proposed regulations involving complicated licensing processes and expensive tariffs for commercial use that would hurt small producers.
“We have seen what happened to the alcohol business in Thailand. Only large-scale producers can monopolize the market,” said Taopiphop Limjittrakorn, a lawmaker from the opposition Move Forward party. “We are concerned that something similar will happen to the cannabis industry if the rules favor big business,” his party said.
Small operators are eager to enter the marijuana industry anyway.
On a hot Sunday afternoon in Sri Racha district in eastern Thailand, Ittisug Hanjichan, owner of Goldenleaf Hemp, a cannabis farm, led his fifth training course for 40 businessmen, farmers and retirees. Each paid about $ 150 to learn tips on how to cut seed covers and care for plants for quality yields.
One of the attendees was 18-year-old Chanadech Sonboon, who said his parents used to scold him for trying to secretly grow marijuana plants.
He said his father has changed his mind and now sees marijuana as a medicine instead of something to be abused. The family runs a small family home and a coffee shop and hopes to be able to offer cannabis to their guests one day.