By Our Special Correspondent
Thailand is the first Asian country to legalize the cultivation and possession of marijuana and its use in food and beverages, with the aim of boosting its agriculture and tourism sectors - but smoking for entertainment is still illegal.
The Minister of Public Health plans to distribute 1 million cannabis plants, the cultivation of which started from Friday to encourage farmers.
However, the Thai government says it only promotes marijuana for medical use, warning that smoking in public is still considered a nuisance, punishable by up to three months in prison and a fine of 25,000 Thai baht ($ 780).
So far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange. Thailand legalized drug marijuana in 2018. Authorities aim to prevent an explosion in recreational use by limiting the strength of legal marijuana products. Products that contain more than 0.2 percent tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, a chemical that increases people, are still illegal.
"We need to know how to use marijuana," said Anutin Charnvirakul, a public health minister who is a major supporter of marijuana in the country. "If we have the right understanding, marijuana is like gold, valuable and should be promoted."
“From our perspective, a major positive outcome of the legal changes is that at least 4,000 people imprisoned for offences relating to cannabis will be released,” Gloria Lai, Asia regional director of the International Drug Policy Consortium, told The Associated Press in an email interview.
The health ministry said it had approved 1,181 products, including cosmetics and food, including cannabis creams, and estimated that the industry could earn 15 billion baht ($ 435.16 million) by 2026.
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