Cannabis Crunch: Thailand's Sudden Reversal on Marijuana Legalization

When weed was illegal, it was sold under the purview of local cops * and military. It's the same reason why prostitution and gambling are still illegal in Thailand - if both industries were legalized, then local military and police would lose a major cash cow.

That's why all Muay Thai matches in Thailand happen at stadiums owned by the Thai Military, all enforcement of prostitution and drugs falls under the military and interior security, and Thailand has their conscripts do menial bullshit labor instead of professional soldiering.

In addition, the culture in TH is also much more conservative. Once you leave expat world, you have extremely socially conservative norms comparable to South Korea.

* Don't blame beat cops alone though. They have to pay for their uniform, gun, gas, etc out of pocket, and they need to pay a bribe to even get the job in TH.

Despite the legalization, locals weren’t indulging broadly. You could theorize that it’s prohibitively expensive compared to average wages. But retail sales are quite strong in Thailand. People are more than willing to spend their disposable income at extravagant malls, on cosmetics, designer brands, etc. I think it’s maybe more that the average Thai citizen just doesn’t care too much about cannabis.

Still a shame to see a policy shift to criminalize nonviolent activity.

Seems like a reasonable idea to realize that ultra processed MJ is more harmful.

If my math is correct (100 / 0.2 * 5 / 1000), 2.5 grams (if you're an imperial person, a gram bag is a 1 inch by 1 inch bag) of that cannabis extract will get you as high as a regular joint (which has 5mg of THC).

So that sounds conservative, but still permissive.