As of: February 18, 2024, 11:59 a.m
By: Sven Hauberg
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Thailand was the first country in Asia to legalize the consumption of cannabis.
Now the government is planning a U-turn.
However, one activist believes that it is already too late for that.
The varieties have names like “Thai Budsaba,” “Blue Dream,” or “Platinum Gorilla Glue,” and they promise a few hours of break from everyday life.
In her small shop on Sukhumvit Road in the heart of Thailand's capital Bangkok, Kitty Chopaka sells cannabis flowers for around 20 euros per gram.
This has been possible for almost two years, completely legally.
Her customers, says Chopaka, are primarily foreigners, “many of them from countries where cannabis is banned.”
While locals primarily prefer cannabis products with only a low active ingredient content, tourists tend to smoke “the hard stuff,” she says.
Since the government of the Asian country removed cannabis from the list of banned substances in June 2022, effectively allowing its cultivation, sale and consumption, Thailand has become a global mecca for stoners.
There are around 6,000 licensed shops across the country.
Some of the grass sold in Thailand comes illegally across the border - from Laos across the Mekong, and some even from the USA or Canada.
Other retailers grow their own cannabis plants.
Kitty Chopaka, on the other hand, sources her goods from around 50 small farmers across the country, of which there are now a few thousand.
Her 15 square meter shop doesn't make much money, she says on the phone.
But that's not their goal at all.
“I describe myself as an activist and advocate for cannabis,” explains the 38-year-old.
Her aim is to ensure that everyone who wants to has access to cannabis.
Also her two children, when they are old enough.
She also consumes herself.
They started after the birth of their second child and said the grass helped her with migraines.
“For me it is an herb with a positive effect and a long history in Thailand.”
Kitty Chopaka is fighting to keep cannabis legal in Thailand.
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Cannabis consumption in Thailand: strictly regulated but available everywhere
Chopaka and her colleagues use the profits from cannabis sales, among other things, to advise people who want to open their own business.
Because anyone who adheres to the legal rules will have to contend with “quite a lot of bureaucracy”.
“All the regulations are like my bedtime reading,” jokes Chopaka, who once ran her father’s law firm.
Every cannabis shop must document where it gets its goods from and to whom the cannabis flowers are sold, and shop owners must also check their customers' IDs.
A report must then be sent to the responsible health authority once a month.
In any case, the stores are only allowed to sell cannabis flowers and extracts that contain a maximum of 0.2 percent THC, but not ready-rolled joints or hash cookies.
Consumption is also regulated.
Smoking weed in public is prohibited, and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, as well as people under 20, are generally not allowed to consume it.
But the rules are often not really enforced.
Doctors complain that the proportion of people under 20 who use joints despite the ban has risen from one to ten percent.
Not only cannabis shops are booming in Thailand, but also rehabilitation clinics.
According to official figures, 63,000 patients were treated for mental health problems related to cannabis use last year, up from 37,000 the year before.
Cannabis is now available almost everywhere in Thailand, especially in tourist hotspots like Bangkok or Phuket.
All the stoned tourists are a thorn in the side of the government, so it now wants to reverse the legalization to some extent.
A new draft law should “allow the use of cannabis only for health and medicinal purposes,” said Thailand’s Health Minister Chonlanan Srikaew in early February.
“Use for fun is considered wrong.” Thailand's new Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin had already announced a corresponding change in the law last summer, and now the government is apparently getting serious.
Penalties of around 1,500 euros are planned for recreational stoners.
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Kitty Chopaka once advised the previous government on legalization, and now she and her colleagues have collected 10,000 signatures to influence the legislative process.
She cannot understand why the government in Bangkok is taking action against cannabis.
Chopaka accuses the government of double standards: “Some politician apparently walked along Sukhumvit Road and was upset about the many cannabis shops,” she says.
"And he apparently didn't see the go-go bars, the sex shops and the crack sellers that are everywhere." In any case, it is already too late to ban cannabis consumption.
After all, there are now people all over the country who know how to grow and process the plants.
“Does the government want to put all these people in prison?”
The Thai activist is closely following the discussion about cannabis approval in Germany.
In this country, the traffic light government is planning legalization in two steps.
Initially, the cultivation of plants and the distribution of the drug in so-called cannabis clubs should be permitted.
Later, special shops will be able to sell the herb in selected model regions.
“If Germany were further along, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in Thailand,” believes Kitty Chopaka.
Because then Thailand would have offered itself as a cannabis supplier instead of thinking about a ban.
After all, she says, the know-how is there.