Thailand: Cannabis community hopes business can continue

Thailand's cannabis industry is in limbo as the government mulls plans to re-regulate the plant for medical use only.

But the country's cannabis community is hopeful they will continue to do business.

Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to decriminalize cannabis last year, and since then, thousands of shops selling the psychoactive plant have opened.

However, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September, Thailand's new prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, said his government will look to regulate cannabis for medical use only.

Thavisin added that cannabis will not be regulated for leisure use and that the government hopes to bring in new legislation to that effect within six months.

Cannabis for medical use has been legal in Thailand since 2018, which was the first country in Southeast Asia to make it so.

But it wasn't until June 2022 that Thailand's Food and Drug Administration officially delisted cannabis from the narcotics list, making possession, cultivation, distribution, consumption, and sales of cannabis all legal under specific conditions.