Hello everyone,It looks like Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health, Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul has been busy recently. The infamous bill that would lay down more rules for cannabis has started to take shape. Based on reporting from the Bangkok Post and comments by house committee member Parnthep Pourpongpan this is a "summary" of what we can expect in the new bill. Limit of 15 cannabis plants per HOUSEHOLDPeople would also be allowed to grow no more than five rai of hemp plants per household for household useSelling and advertising cannabis and cannabis-based products online and in vending machines will be prohibitedOther groups that will also be allowed to register for growing the plants include hospitals, medical practitioners, dental practitioners, Thai traditional medicine practitioners, applied Thai traditional...The previously mentioned groups can make medicines from the plants for patients without seeking permissionSmall scale businesses, growing no more than 5-rai of cannabis that do not seek permission can be fined up to 100,000 baht and/or a jail term of no longer than 1-yearLarge scale businesses, growing more than 5-rai, that do not seek permission can be fined 300,000 baht and/or a jail term of no longer than 3-years.Those that export cannabis without a license can receive jail term or up to 5-years and/or a fine of 500,000In order to grow cannabis for commercial purposes, one must be a Thai national or at least 20-years or age.Companies that grow cannabis for commercial purposes must be Thai owned and operatedOnline advertising for the sale of cannabis flowering buds, cannabis hashish, cannabis extracts and equipment used for smoking cannabis is prohibited.Violators of the online advertising ban would be subject to up to 1-year in jail and/or a fine of 100,000Also banned and subject to the same 1-year, 100,000 penalty are any exaggeration or false advertising of other parts of the cannabis plant used as herbsNo selling to people under 20, pregnant women, and women who are breast feeding. 1-year and/or 100,000 fine for violators.Also banned are the sale of cannabis and hemp, their extracts and food with cannabis and hemp as ingredients online and in vending machines while promotional and marketing campaigns are also prohibitedThe sale of cannabis would be prohibited in temples, religious premises, schools and educational institutes, dormitories, public parks and other premises declared by the Public Health MinisterPremises off-limits to cannabis smoking include temples, public parks and restaurantsNothing too crazy, though, Antuin keeps rumbling to the media about how it was never intended for cannabis to be used recreationally (even though he also said this week that he's open to recreational use) and he made public statements recently saying that tourists that only want to come to Thailand to smoke weed shouldn't bother coming. That seems to be the double-edged sword we've been seeing in relation to foreigners and cannabis in Thailand. While everyone seems happy with foreigners buying cannabis in Thailand, not everyone thinks foreigners should play a role in the cannabis industry in Thailand. We saw that early when the requirements for owning a dispensary were 66% Thai ownership vs the 51% that is required for other types of companies. This was surely intended to keep foreigners from using Thais as nominee shareholders. Whether or not it will be effective remains to be seen. And this week we saw a group of Thai businesses calling on people to support the Thai cannabis industry and to shun imports.While it wasn't clear if the plea was meant for buying imported seeds or buying imported cannabis, it didn't hit the way I'm sure they thought it would in the foreigner community. Of course, most people would love to buy locally, but with dispensaries charging up to 1,200 per gram of bud, the prices seem outrageously expensive. Apparently that has resulted in some enterprising people to (illegally) import cannabis from the US and Canada to be sold in Thailand at Thai dispensaries and sell it for less than what some dispensaries are charging for locally grown cannabis of inferior quality. It seems that if there's an import problem, the problem is price. If people can buy weed in the US or Canada, ship it to Thailand, pay whatever costs are entailed in illegally importing goods, and then sell the weed for less than what locally produced weed is being sold for, there's a problem with the Thai cannabis business model. There is no part of the supply chain that should be more expensive than growing in California or Colorado. Labor, water, electricity, transportation, etc are all cheaper in Thailand. So if this is a temporary supply-side problem and all farmers need to do is catch up to demand, this problem will go away on its own and doesn't require a plea to the cannabis community to not buy imports because soon imports won't be able to compete on price. However, if the problem is endemic to the Thai cannabis business model, Thailand's cannabis market is already dead before it even gets going. In other sub news, you can still cast a vote for what your preferred edibles dosage is. Last week we asked what people thought the final price per gram would be for mid-tier bud once shortage issues were resolved and 45% of you voted for less than 300 baht per gram. Almost 28.5% said 300 - 400 and 15.8% said 401 - 500 baht a gram. And for the growers out there, 54.5% of you said that you prefer to grow in soil, 24.7% prefer hydroponic growing, and 20.8% like growing in coco coir. This was a lengthy one so I'll leave it there and see you next week.Cheers,u/CannabisThailandMod
r/CannabisThailand Newsletter - Issue #07
Hello everyone,It looks like Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health, Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul has been busy recently. The infamous bill that would lay down more rules for cannabis has started to take shape. Based on reporting from the Bangkok Post and comments by house committee member Parnthep Pourpongpan this is a "summary" of what we can expect in the new bill. Limit of 15 cannabis plants per HOUSEHOLDPeople would also be allowed to grow no more than five rai of hemp plants per household for household useSelling and advertising cannabis and cannabis-based products online and in vending machines will be prohibitedOther groups that will also be allowed to register for growing the plants include hospitals, medical practitioners, dental practitioners, Thai traditional medicine practitioners, applied Thai traditional...The previously mentioned groups can make medicines from the plants for patients without seeking permissionSmall scale businesses, growing no more than 5-rai of cannabis that do not seek permission can be fined up to 100,000 baht and/or a jail term of no longer than 1-yearLarge scale businesses, growing more than 5-rai, that do not seek permission can be fined 300,000 baht and/or a jail term of no longer than 3-years.Those that export cannabis without a license can receive jail term or up to 5-years and/or a fine of 500,000In order to grow cannabis for commercial purposes, one must be a Thai national or at least 20-years or age.Companies that grow cannabis for commercial purposes must be Thai owned and operatedOnline advertising for the sale of cannabis flowering buds, cannabis hashish, cannabis extracts and equipment used for smoking cannabis is prohibited.Violators of the online advertising ban would be subject to up to 1-year in jail and/or a fine of 100,000Also banned and subject to the same 1-year, 100,000 penalty are any exaggeration or false advertising of other parts of the cannabis plant used as herbsNo selling to people under 20, pregnant women, and women who are breast feeding. 1-year and/or 100,000 fine for violators.Also banned are the sale of cannabis and hemp, their extracts and food with cannabis and hemp as ingredients online and in vending machines while promotional and marketing campaigns are also prohibitedThe sale of cannabis would be prohibited in temples, religious premises, schools and educational institutes, dormitories, public parks and other premises declared by the Public Health MinisterPremises off-limits to cannabis smoking include temples, public parks and restaurantsNothing too crazy, though, Antuin keeps rumbling to the media about how it was never intended for cannabis to be used recreationally (even though he also said this week that he's open to recreational use) and he made public statements recently saying that tourists that only want to come to Thailand to smoke weed shouldn't bother coming. That seems to be the double-edged sword we've been seeing in relation to foreigners and cannabis in Thailand. While everyone seems happy with foreigners buying cannabis in Thailand, not everyone thinks foreigners should play a role in the cannabis industry in Thailand. We saw that early when the requirements for owning a dispensary were 66% Thai ownership vs the 51% that is required for other types of companies. This was surely intended to keep foreigners from using Thais as nominee shareholders. Whether or not it will be effective remains to be seen. And this week we saw a group of Thai businesses calling on people to support the Thai cannabis industry and to shun imports.While it wasn't clear if the plea was meant for buying imported seeds or buying imported cannabis, it didn't hit the way I'm sure they thought it would in the foreigner community. Of course, most people would love to buy locally, but with dispensaries charging up to 1,200 per gram of bud, the prices seem outrageously expensive. Apparently that has resulted in some enterprising people to (illegally) import cannabis from the US and Canada to be sold in Thailand at Thai dispensaries and sell it for less than what some dispensaries are charging for locally grown cannabis of inferior quality. It seems that if there's an import problem, the problem is price. If people can buy weed in the US or Canada, ship it to Thailand, pay whatever costs are entailed in illegally importing goods, and then sell the weed for less than what locally produced weed is being sold for, there's a problem with the Thai cannabis business model. There is no part of the supply chain that should be more expensive than growing in California or Colorado. Labor, water, electricity, transportation, etc are all cheaper in Thailand. So if this is a temporary supply-side problem and all farmers need to do is catch up to demand, this problem will go away on its own and doesn't require a plea to the cannabis community to not buy imports because soon imports won't be able to compete on price. However, if the problem is endemic to the Thai cannabis business model, Thailand's cannabis market is already dead before it even gets going. In other sub news, you can still cast a vote for what your preferred edibles dosage is. Last week we asked what people thought the final price per gram would be for mid-tier bud once shortage issues were resolved and 45% of you voted for less than 300 baht per gram. Almost 28.5% said 300 - 400 and 15.8% said 401 - 500 baht a gram. And for the growers out there, 54.5% of you said that you prefer to grow in soil, 24.7% prefer hydroponic growing, and 20.8% like growing in coco coir. This was a lengthy one so I'll leave it there and see you next week.Cheers,u/CannabisThailandMod