Thailand moves to re-criminalise cannabis in blow to $1bn industry

The bid to restrict cannabis usage for aesculapian purposes lone indispensable walk different hurdle earlier becoming law.

The Thai authorities is moving to tighten rules astir the sale of cannabis, conscionable 3 years aft the kingdom decriminalised recreational usage of the fashionable substance.

Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health connected Tuesday nighttime ordered that cannabis usage beryllium restricted to aesculapian usage only, throwing the estimated $1bn manufacture into a authorities of uncertainty.

Government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said cannabis had created superior societal problems for young people, and the industry, which has boomed successful caller years, needed to beryllium scaled back.

“The argumentation indispensable instrumentality to its archetypal extremity of controlling cannabis for aesculapian usage only,” Jirayu said successful a statement.

The order, however, is not instrumentality yet.

It volition request to beryllium published successful the authoritative Royal Gazette to travel into force, and the authorities has not indicated erstwhile that volition happen.

Thailand became the archetypal state successful Asia to afloat decriminalise cannabis successful 2022, successful a determination that has been wildly fashionable with tourists but little truthful among much blimpish Thais.

Thousands of cannabis stores person opened crossed Thailand successful the past 3 years, though it has remained comparatively unregulated contempt aggregate attempts by the government.

The latest determination to restrict cannabis usage comes amid wider governmental turmoil successful Thailand.

Last week the Bhumjaithai Party, antecedently a champion of decriminalising cannabis, withdrew from the government’s ruling conjugation owed to its mishandling of a borderline struggle with Cambodia.

The Thai Chamber of Commerce antecedently estimated that the cannabis commercialized could beryllium worthy $1.2bn by 2025, though experts accidental it has not reached its afloat imaginable owed to the uncertainty that has plagued regularisation astir the manufacture since it was decriminalised.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies