Neon cannabis leaves light up practically every corner; an inescapable marker of what quickly ballooned into a billion-dollar industry.
More than 18,000 recreational marijuana shops sprang up, seemingly out of nowhere, when Thailand became the first Asian nation to decriminalise cannabis in 2022.
Last month, the government introduced new regulations restricting cannabis to medicinal use only, banning dispensaries from selling the drug to anyone without a prescription.
It’s now flagging more rules to come; planning to cut shop numbers back almost 90 per cent to 2,000 and require each one to have a doctor on site.
“The customers are gone,” cannabis shop owner Suradeth Wattanasoontornkul says. “They are scared. Everyone’s business is going down.”
“The shop opposite us just closed. They probably couldn’t bear it anymore.”
So far, there’s no real evidence Thai authorities have started enforcing the new regulations, but Suradeth says the fear they will has scared most of his customers away.
He used to sell more than $7,000 worth of cannabis every month. Last month, it dropped to less than $500.
“We paid 5,000 baht ($240) to the government for a licence, but once we get that licence, they release new regulations and tell us the one we have is useless,” Suradeth says.
“Sure, you can hire a doctor, but the cost is very high, and not every doctor wants to work in a cannabis shop.”
The governmental feud fuelling recriminalisation
Thailand’s health minister says the reforms are about improving public safety and addressing rising cannabis addiction, but analysts say they are also wound up in Thailand’s latest political crisis.
In June, former Cambodian leader Hun Sen leaked the audio from a controversial phone call with Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, during which she appeared to make disparaging remarks about her own military’s handling of the recent border crisis.
Her political allies in the Bhumjaithai Party, which was the main driving force behind cannabis decriminalisation, withdrew from the coalition in outrage.
Within a week, Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party had moved to recriminalise the drug.
The reversal on cannabis “has a lot to do with coalition dynamics and coalition politics,” political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, says.
“The cannabis policy in Thailand is synonymous with the Bhumjaithai Party. It wanted to broaden its political base by decriminalising cannabis. So, suddenly, you had these cannabis shops mushrooming around Thailand, especially in Bangkok,” he says.
