r/CannabisThailand Newsletter - Issue #38

And they're off . . .

Thailand THC

Mar 26, 2023

Sawadee Everyone,

It’s official, Thai parliament has been dissolved and elections are scheduled for May of this year.

Amongst many other issues, the question of whether or not cannabis stays legal hangs in the balance.

There are four main potential outcomes:

Cannabis remains legal but some additional housekeeping laws that were in the cannabis bill gets passed (mostly public safety type issues)
Cannabis becomes medicinal use only with a US-style definition of medicinal use where people are required to obtain a medical marijuana card from a doctor before buying from dispensary
Cannabis becomes medicinal use with strict definitions of what ailments are allowed to be treated with cannabis and we return to pre-June 9, 2022 THC/CBD tinctures only available from government hospitals and some niche clinics
Cannabis is recriminalized

I’ve listed the potential outcomes in order of what I think the likelihood of each is. There are all sorts of other potential outcomes, I mean this is Thailand after all, but I do think these are either what various political parties have been touting in their election messaging or they seem like what politicians are likely to do given what they’ve said vs the realities of doing what they said.

Cannabis remaining legal with some additional housekeeping laws is the likely outcome if the BJT party is part of any coalition government.

Cannabis becoming medicinal with US-style medical use definitions is likely to be the compromise many parties are going to have to come to grips with regardless of what they’re preaching on the campaign trail.

The last two are, to a certain degree, the same thing. Whether cannabis is severely restricted or made illegal result in similar outcomes for the industry and most consumers.

It’s estimated that there are already over 5,000 dispensaries across Thailand. And the number of growers, wholesalers, and other businesses started around cannabis means that there are tens of thousands of people earning a living from cannabis.

To take that away from people will not go over well with Thais, even Thais that aren’t necessarily involved in the industry or even in favor of cannabis.

I’ve already seen some people challenging anti-cannabis politicians about how they would go about winding down the cannabis industry. Who will buy all of the leftover inventory? Who is going to compensate these businesses who went and received explicit government approval to grow or sell cannabis when the government says they can no longer grow or sell?

Pheu Thai, the party likely to get the most seats in parliament after the elections, has not said they’ll recriminalize it. They’ve been very careful to sidestep around what they’ll actually do as they promise voters they’ll do something about recreational cannabis use.

The reality is that enough PT party members and supporters are making money in the cannabis space that they’ll find a way to keep their campaign promises while not tampering too much with the cannabis cash cow.

That’s why it seems more likely that they would pass a law that says everyone has to have a medical marijuana card in order to buy cannabis. And the cards will likely be as easy to obtain as walking into a clinic and saying you have difficulty sleeping and paying a few hundred baht.

This allows PT to claim victory but nothing really changes too much. That is very much how Thai politics works.

They’ll say that everyone has to have a medical cannabis card, the penalty for possession without a cannabis card will be so mild there’s little incentive for the police to enforce the law, every so often there will be a big crackdown to appease the anti-cannabis people, and everyone will just go on doing what they’re doing.

The last two are possible but unlikely outcomes. None of the parties pushing for a hardline approach to cannabis are likely to do well enough in the polls to be a major issue.

Even if PT were to join forces with the Move Forward party or the Democrats (both who have expressed very negative opinions on cannabis), they probably won’t have enough power to do much. And they still have to deal with the realities of a bunch of growers and dispensary owners demanding to be made whole which will make PT keep them in check.

There are many other scenarios too. The PPRP under Prawit could do better than expected but they’re likely to partner with BJT. Even former PM Prayut’s new political party UTN might do well in the elections, but again, Prayut and BJT have good relations so it’s likely that they would seek to partner with BJT to form a government too.

So as we head into what should be an interesting campaign season, regardless of what is said in the media, keep a close eye on what the actual parties say vs how the reporters frame what they say.

Hopefully in June when we hit the one year anniversary of cannabis being legal in Thailand, the industry will have a bright future to look forward to.

Cheers,

u/CannabisThailandMod