Bangkok: If you’ve spent any time on the streets here in the last few years, you would have almost certainly caught the unmistakable waft of marijuana. Maybe you even indulged, and why not? It has been legal, after all.
When Thailand removed cannabis from its narcotics list in 2022 – the first Asian country to do so – 18,000 or so marijuana parlours popped up around the country.
The shops were everywhere, like pubs in London. And if you didn’t smell them first, you couldn’t miss their flashing green neon signs in the shape of a marijuana leaf.
The idea behind decriminalisation was to boost Thailand’s brand as a wellness destination, give farmers a new cash crop and free up space in overcrowded prisons.
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed just the trick. Tourism makes up roughly 15 per cent of Thailand’s GDP.
Tycoon turned pro-business politician Anutin Charnvirakul was the champion behind decriminalisation. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he has been Thailand’s prime minister since September, essentially in a caretaker role.
On Sunday, his Bhumjaithai Party surpassed all expectations to win the most seats in the country’s snap elections, meaning he’s almost certain to stay in the job.
On the face of it, this would be a positive for the cannabis industry’s long-term health, no?
Well, not necessarily.
The cannabis trade has been a debacle of the former government’s own making. With few regulations in place, it boomed in 2022, becoming an out-of-control beast that ensnared previous non-users, including minors.
Family holidaymakers, meanwhile, were turned off because who wants to be walking the kids through streets thick with the smell of drugs?
A local backlash followed and, midway through last year, the ruling Pheu Thai party declared that cannabis could be sold only to someone with a doctor’s prescription. The burgeoning industry was decimated overnight.
Shops were already struggling because there was too much low-priced cannabis, too many outlets and too few customers. Many closed. Some began looking the other way on prescriptions, spawning a black market that operates not just in plain sight, but under big glowing signs.
Survival has meant new strategies. One shop in the Sukhumvit area, for example, redesigned its frontage to resemble a pharmacy.
I ask the server, Ramil, 26, if Bhumjaithai romping home in the election (though the party still needs to cobble together a coalition) is good news for the industry.
“Maybe,” he says, with an inflection of enthusiasm. “We’ll just have to see.”
It has been a tough game for a long time now, he says. Cannabis flooded the market in 2022, cutting profit margins. “And then maybe it stabilised. But then with the prescriptions, that hurt.”
The most novel approach I’ve seen is at a shop called Cloud Nine, also in Sukhumvit.
On the footpath outside, an A-frame sign declares “free prescription with every purchase”.
We asked the friendly, English-speaking server what it’s all about. (English speakers are vital because the customers are mostly foreigners, with Australians high on that list.)
It’s all very simple, she says, asking not to be named or photographed.
“If you purchase the flower, you’ll be consulting with a doctor. The doctor will diagnose you, asking ‘what do you need it for and how much do you need?’.”
Then, hey presto, a prescription!
There’s no in-house doctor, she says. It’s a telehealth hook-up to a nearby clinic.
Does the doctor ever say no? “Not really,” she says.
There’s no need to book in advance and the whole process takes just a few minutes.
“We won’t sell without [a] prescription. That’s the golden rule here,” she says.
“Talking to my customers, a lot of them say, ‘Oh, why do we have to do it here? Other shops, they don’t do it’. But we’re doing it the right way.”
She says she has no idea whether Bhumjaithai will do away with the prescription law introduced by the previous government.
It seems unlikely. Though we could not get a response from Bhumjaithai amid its post-election bargaining with other parties, Anutin has previously argued that the loosening of the laws was always focused on medicinal marijuana, rather than recreational, use.
No party wants to touch the law now. Surveys show the overwhelming majority of Thais don’t want recreational cannabis use legalised in their country.
Meanwhile, even tourism bodies, concerned at losing high-value family holidaymakers, support reclassification. Visitor numbers in Thailand remain below pre-COVID levels.
Thousands of Thais invested their savings to open cannabis businesses that have already closed their doors. Others cling on precariously.
The Thai government’s experiment with marijuana has not only been sloppy. For some people, it has been a disaster.
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