In a move that took everyone by surprise, the Prime Minister of Thailand stated during an interview in New York that recreational marijuana use ought to be made illegal once more. According to statements made by Srettha Thavisin to Bloomberg Television, the law needs to be amended in order to restrict the usage of ganja to medical purposes alone. “There can’t be a middle ground for recreational use,” he stated as his final conclusion.After marijuana was removed from the list of controlled substances a year ago, around 6,000 “dispensaries” have emerged across the country, the majority of which do not bother to conceal their sales to the population of Thailand and foreigners who smoke marijuana for recreational purposes. The amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, which is what gives inhalers the sense of being “high,” is meant to be restricted to 0.2 percent in retail outlets. Due to the absence of a thorough regulation that specifies what aspects of the ganja industry are legal and what aspects are not, the entire ganja sector in Thailand has a great deal of leeway.
However, a large number of experts are pessimistic that pot smoking for recreational purposes will once again be subject to criminal consequences. “Off” Boonchert, who runs multiple retail businesses in Pattaya, stated that there isn’t a clear dividing line between recreational use and medical use of marijuana. It’s possible that a man who has cancer would love the puff. One possible solution would be for customers to indicate what illnesses they suffer from by signing a document before making a purchase. He went on to say that the authorities would prefer not to go back to the bad old days, when marijuana was sold in clandestine markets, making it difficult to keep the drug under control.
There is also the question of whether or not all eleven of the parties that make up the existing coalition will agree on a single course of action. It was health minister Anutin Charnvirakul, whose Bhumjaithai party is still a part of the new government, who was responsible for the declassification that took place the previous year. Anutin has expressed support for the new regulations that will control cannabis, but he has also gone on record as claiming that he does not believe the drug will ever again be classified as a narcotic. In the general election that took place in May of 2018, one reason for Bhumjaithai’s success was his pro-marijuana attitude.
Ganja shops could now be under threat
