Local marijuana merchants and farmers fear the law’s first withdrawal

It has been several months since Thailand passed legislation making marijuana legal, semi-legal, not illegal, not illegal at all, or maybe quasi-legal. On June 9, Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis on a national level, and just the third country in the world to do so overall, following Canada and Uruguay. Or so we believed at the time. People in the tourism industry, smokers, patients, and sellers are all trying to conduct their businesses almost entirely outside of any legal framework. But if there is one thing that they can all agree on, it is that new laws will be enacted sooner or later. In the meantime, uncertainty will continue to reign supreme in this infant market, in which no one can predict what the next step will be.

Local business owners who are involved in the marijuana industry want the government to reaffirm its support for cannabis and hemp laws that are on the liberal side. This is because the entrepreneurs are concerned that the House of Representatives may try to change the new laws or even repeal them entirely.

The opinions held by members of the coalition government are far from being united, and there is a great chance of marijuana being used as a political football at precisely the same time as significant political change has appeared on the horizon. Associations for health, investors, and the general population are unable to do anything but wait. Any delay in fully enforcing the law would result in large financial losses for investors and will have a strong negative impact not only domestically but also internationally. The widespread confusion among small business owners was brought to light by Sittichai Daengprasert, chairman of both the Dietary Supplement Industry Club and the Herbal Industry Club, both of which are affiliated with the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI). The possibility that the plant may once again be regarded as a controlled substance is one of the most significant of these worries. Thanatcha Chalayonnavin, the Director of Marketing and Public Relations of Play La Ploen Boutique Resort, who also owns a cannabis plantation in the province of Buriram, stated that many farmers and smallholders had begun growing marijuana in the hopes that it would become their primary source of income. Since the draft Cannabis and Hemp Act was withdrawn during its first examination, these farmers have been left without any options for moving further.