PM vows to recriminalize cannabis

[reader]

From Reuters

Thailand will re-list cannabis as a narcotic by year-end, its prime minister said on Tuesday, in a stunning U-turn just two years after becoming one of the first countries in Asia to decriminalise its recreational use.

The moves comes despite rapid growth of a domestic retail sector for marijuana, with tens of thousands of shops and businesses springing up in Thailand in the past two years in an industry projected to be worth up to $1.2 billion by 2025.

"I want the health ministry to amend the rules and re-list cannabis as a narcotic," Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on social media platform X.

"The ministry should quickly issue a rule to allow its usage for health and medical purposes only."

 

[bkkmfj2648]

TIT - This Is Thailand - contradictions and always changing of the mind

I read somewhere else that there are approximately 6.000 marijuana shops across Thailand and then all of the related upstream businesses (farms, cultivation, distributors, equipment, etc.).  All of these will be interrupted and many people put out of work.  Then there will be the above mentioned loss of income and related taxes to the government.

In addition, with the government wanting to tax us "residents" (those of us who live here more than 180 days) - you wonder if this current government is trying to hurt its economy with the elimination of the marijuana industry and ability to attract foreigners who want to live here without this new additional tax burden and tax reporting....

[thaiophilus]

1 hour ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

I read somewhere else that there are approximately 6.000 marijuana shops across Thailand and then all of the related upstream businesses (farms, cultivation, distributors, equipment, etc.). 

 

Not to mention that there must be some "persons of influence" who have a stake in those businesses.

[Keithambrose]

7 hours ago, thaiophilus said:

Not to mention that there must be some "persons of influence" who have a stake in those businesses.

I wonder whom you mean!

[Keithambrose]

I see that Anutin has come out to criticise the recriminalisation of cannabis. Remind me, whose family own a large number of cannabis  farms?

[reader]

From Pattaya News

Fire Erupts at Massive Marijuana Plantation Warehouse

At 10:00 AM, on May 9th, 2024, Mueang Chachoengsao police officers received a fire incident report at a massive private marijuana plantation warehouse in Mueang Chachoengsao, Chachoengsao.

Mueang Chachoengsao police and relevant agencies were dispatched to the reported warehouse where four adjacent private warehouses were in an open area. The marijuana plantation and marijuana storage warehouse was where the fire first started.

The firefighters were able to put the fire under control after about 50 minutes. No injuries or casualties were reported from the incident, according to the police.

Initially, the Mueang Chachoengsao forensic and relevant officials would investigate the warehouses to determine the exact cause of the fire incident.

[bkkmfj2648]

imagine the high feeling all of the local residents had after all of that bong smoke 

[Keithambrose]

18 hours ago, reader said:

From Pattaya News

Fire Erupts at Massive Marijuana Plantation Warehouse

At 10:00 AM, on May 9th, 2024, Mueang Chachoengsao police officers received a fire incident report at a massive private marijuana plantation warehouse in Mueang Chachoengsao, Chachoengsao.

Mueang Chachoengsao police and relevant agencies were dispatched to the reported warehouse where four adjacent private warehouses were in an open area. The marijuana plantation and marijuana storage warehouse was where the fire first started.

The firefighters were able to put the fire under control after about 50 minutes. No injuries or casualties were reported from the incident, according to the police.

Initially, the Mueang Chachoengsao forensic and relevant officials would investigate the warehouses to determine the exact cause of the fire incident.

Coincidence?

[reader]

From The Nation

Ganja growers fret over unsold stock

The members of a community enterprise growing marijuana in Sakon Nakhon province said their dream of having a better life had been shattered due to stockpiling of unsold products.

Even worse, they were worried about the government relisting cannabis as a drug, which would leave them in limbo.

As the second anniversary of the decriminalisation of ganja approaches on June 9, members of a community enterprise growing marijuana in Sakon Nakhon said that things had not turned out as per their optimistic expectations.

The community also made ganja tea from leaves and branches for sale.

But members of the community enterprise found out that their products last year did not sell well anymore. They said several thousands of kilograms of their unsold ganja leaves had piled up.

They said vendors no longer came to buy their products. Even if they offered to buy, they would lower the price to 1,200 baht a kilogram, the villagers complained.

The members of the enterprise said the price had dropped and locally-grown ganja could not sell because some tycoons had cultivated marijuana in neighbouring countries and smuggled them into the kingdom.

They said some Thai investors also had joined hands with their foreign partners to import foreign strains of ganja to grow and sell at much higher prices at the cost of the villagers who grew the Thai strain to sell.

The villagers called on the government to come up with measures to help the villagers who had grown Thai marijuana instead of supporting foreign investors.

They also called on the authorities to effectively prevent smuggling of ganja from neighbouring countries. The government should scan marijuana products in the market to check whether they were really cultivated in Thailand, they said.

“When the government decriminalised the plant, it promised that farmers would have a better life, but now people have not even recovered their investment in greenhouses,” a villager said, asking not to be named.

The members of the community enterprise said they disagreed with the government’s plan to relist marijuana as a drug, saying it would not really solve the issue and it would be a political game.

They said when they started growing ganja two years ago after it was decriminalised, their ganja products sold like hot cakes. Ganja leaves fetched them 10,500 baht per kilogram and buyers had to book them months in advance.

They could also sell ganja flowers to the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine and a hospital in Sakon Nakhon to use as medicine.

Meanwhile, Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said the government planned to relist marijuana as a drug as the number of youth smoking marijuana had increased by 10 times during  the past two years.

He said researchers at Chulalongkorn University had also found out that the IQ points of youth who smoked ganja had dropped by 8-9 points.

Somsak said the Public Health Ministry also had its own figures about the side-effects of ganja smoking, but the data would not be released now.

“I would like to see the Public Health Ministry remain neutral in this issue,” Somsak said.

Somsak also advised those who had received permission to plant marijuana for sale, to stop planting new crops pending clarification of the government’s policy on the issue.

[bkkmfj2648]

Check out this 38 minute informative Youtube video rant from Ben Hart (American lawyer in Bangkok who is now a Thai citizen).

I found it illuminating and very enlightening.

Thoughts?

 

[reader]

From Thai PBS World

Anutin claims party was “double-crossed” in parliament over cannabis bill

Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said today that his Bhumjaithai party had fulfilled its election pledge to decriminalise cannabis, but the party was double-crossed when its associated bill passed its first reading in the House, but has been blocked from further progress since.

Responding to the government’s plan to reclassify cannabis as a Category 5 narcotic, Anutin insists that the party has scientific proof of the advantages of cannabis for medical and health uses, as he challenged those who are against cannabis to come up with credible information to prove the demerits of the substances.

He disclosed that the problem with cannabis is that there is no law to govern its use, adding that the authority to delist cannabis from Category 5, or to relist it, rests with the Narcotic Prevention and Suppression Board and the Narcotic Control Committee, chaired by the permanent secretary of public health.

Although he is no longer in charge of the Ministry of Public Health, the Bhumjaithai party leader said that he is still a member of the Narcotic Prevention and Suppression Board. In this capacity, he said he will provide scientific information to the board in defence of cannabis adding, however, that the board has the final say on the matter.

Asked about existing cannabis retail outlets, of which there are now many, Anutin said that they are currently controlled by a ministerial regulation from the Public Health Ministry.

[t0oL1]