Integrity Legal - Law Firm in Bangkok | Bangkok Lawyer | Legal Services Thailand Back to
Integrity Legal

Legal Services & Resources 

Up to date legal information pertaining to Thai, American, & International Law.

Contact us: +66 2-266 3698

[email protected]

ResourcesThailand Criminal LawCriminal Jurisprudence ThailandIs Medical Marijuana About To Be Legalized In Thailand?

Is Medical Marijuana About To Be Legalized In Thailand?

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are going to be talking about a topic that may be of interest to certain viewers but is probably of great interest to the business of medical marijuana or the business of marijuana in general and that is recent stirrings or recent announcements that at least some kind of medical marijuana is going to be legalized in the fairly near future here in the Kingdom.

A recent article from “Khao Sod English”, at khaosodenglish.com , and I urge viewers to just Google this headline and take a look at this whole article directly because I only quote a  little snippet and then go into my own analysis of the situation but I strongly urge those interested in this, check out Khao Sod English’s website, Google this headline, “Thai Law About to Make Medical  Marijuana Legal” and check this out in full. But I will just quote a few of the more relevant passages here. A recent rewrite of the Nation’s strict narcotics laws will allow marijuana to be sold legally over the counter with a Doctor’s prescription Narcotics Control Director Sirinya Sittichai said Tuesday.  “For medical purposes, they will be able to get the marijuana but only on a Doctor’s orders; they can’t grow it on their own”  Sirinya said, “this is what we have put in the draft. The drug laws were rewritten late last year and those revisions are currently on their way to the Cabinet for consideration” Sirinya said. “Once the new regulations are approved, they will be put to a vote by the Junta appointed interim Parliament’. Sirinya said he does not expect any opposition from lawmakers.  “Doctors in our country are still divided into 2 opinions”, he said, “some fear that if we legalize it for recreational use, children may use it and it may impact their brain development. We are looking at both the good and the bad”. I just wanted to quote that further, that little thing to go into my discussion or my sort of monologue of this issue. First of all, I will believe it when I see it. I do believe that the article was genuine; I do believe there are genuine strides being taken to see Medical Marijuana legalized. That being said, I do not quite know if I see Medical Marijuana in Thailand looking very much like say the Medical Marijuana regime in the State of California in the United States where “yes, it was a Medical Marijuana regime but effectively  it was a mechanism by which to more broadly distribute marijuana in general. And I am not going to get into the depth or into any detail with basically getting into the particulars of California’s marijuana law or what this may look like. Apparently there was another report I read that there is a plantation that appears to be being put up in order to facilitate the growing of this kind of marijuana so I suspect there is going to be some sort of, for lack of a  better term, a “closed circuit network” of both the growing,  cultivation and later distribution of this material and again the another thing to keep in mind is this requires a doctor’s prescription. You know it’s been my experience, Doctors in the Kingdom of Thailand are not, you know for lack of a better term “prescription happy”, they are not, they take prescribing drugs of any nature quite seriously so it remains to be seen just in practice how available medical marijuana is going to be even upon Cabinet approval of this. But it is an interesting thing to look at. I find it interesting that this is something that I think maybe only this Government could do because they are in a position to be able to create legislation and enact legislation and put in place protocols for allowing this kind of loosening of policy with respect to marijuana simply because they are kind of a “ law and order” regime. That is really sort of their mandate, for lack of a better term and I think it’s fairly clear, at least in an international context, that the so called drug war or drug policies that are, strict drug policies, especially with respect to marijuana and cannabis, have been ineffectual in some ways and probably not the greatest policy decisions, you know, overall. I am not, I don’t know where I really stand on this issue. I am not overly keen for it to pass per se, I do believe in and I don’t mean to get into my own thoughts on this, but I do believe in sort of “people’s choice” to do what they want to do, but that being said, people’s choice has an impact on sort of the overall society so I take a middle road on all of this. But that being said, it seems like it’s possibly going to happen. We could see a regime fairly soon in Thailand with respect to, you know, availability of medical marijuana, but that being said,  as noted toward the end of what I was quoting, the Narcotics Officer in question noted that “don’t hold your breath for” I think the implication was “don’t hold your breath to see recreational use marijuana happen any time soon” because doctors still have sort of a split set of opinions on it and I think also there is something to be said for the law enforcement regulatory infrastructure may not be ready for that development. But that being said, the thing to take away from this video is, it looks to me medical marijuana may be happening sometime in the fairly near future. Exactly how that regime is going to operate remains to be seen. My personal opinion is at least in the early stages, it’s going to be a very tight, very narrow subset of people that are going to be eligible for medical marijuana prescriptions but that may not be the case. It may look more like California and with wider usage, wider prescription usage of these substances so probably another video will be made as we know a little bit more with respect to this specific issue.