I know of few people in this city that I have met over the years and a couple of them jumped on the bandwagon of opening a marijuana dispensary once it was legal for them to do so.
This industry is already raking in billions of dollars for Thailand and therefore a great deal of tax revenue. Despite the fact that nearly nothing bad has come from introducing legal recreational weed use in this country the conservative government is calling for it to be "re-banned" by the end of 2024. Obviously this upset a lot of people that have invested in this industry and even though the legislation has not yet been passed, dispensaries are moving to have a plan should the recreational side of it be rescinded.
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This whole movement to legalize it has gone through a bunch of phases. Initially it was approved for medicinal use only and was very restrictive, then the restrictions on medical use were lessened, then in a shock decision they decided to legalize it for all purposes but only Thai people would be allowed to purchase it, then they just threw in the towel and said "fuck it! everyone can have it provided they are over 18!" The last part is where I think it should have stayed. It was one of the few things in this country that at least from a legal standpoint, made sense to me about how this country is run.
There are a lot of reasons why it should be legalized but the main ones are that weed use doesn't really have any ill effects and in my mind it is actually a lot safer than booze because I have never known anyone to get really violent on weed or to operate a car in a reckless manner but both of these things happen with booze on a regular basis.
So when the new government announced plans to re-criminalize the use of marijuana I think that most of the people in this country had a simultaneous response of "why?"
I think there is dirty stuff going on as far as this is concerned politically such as the tobacco and alcohol industries losing sales because of the legalization so these powerful lobbying groups phoned up their pals who are in Parliament and encouraged them to make up a reason why it shouldn't be legal. It's all bullshit of course and that is exactly what happened. They started fabricating stories of people going insane because of marijuana addiction and then as is par for the course, they started claiming that children were suffering because of this even though they are not.
There is also the case of how it was extremely easy to get your hands on weed when it was illegal. In fact, many of my regular smoker friends have stated that it has become more expensive after it was legalized and they preferred when it wasn't legal. The flip side of this statement is that at a dispensary you know exactly what you are getting and can acquire special types of weed with varying strains depending on what you want it to accomplish for you. I don't really care for weed and don't often use it myself but I believe that people should be able to do what they want and they are going to get it and use it whether it is legal or not.
So the two dispensary owners that I know have said that they, and all other established dispensaries are already hoping for the best but also preparing for the worst. Should this legislation actually pass they have already prepared to have access to a nearby clinic that can give out medical prescription cards in a timely and affordable manner.
This method will work because just like a lot of things in Thailand, the clinics here will put basically whatever you want them to on a piece of paper for a little bit of money. I will use my "health check" that I needed to be employed by a school as an example. In order to work for the school that I am employed by there were a bunch of hoops that I had to jump through and one of them was to get a health assessment from a local doctor. This process is very common for a lot of different visas and I was pointed in the direction of one particular clinic that does this sort of thing for a lot of people. The process consisted of me talking to reception, telling them that I needed a health certificate and them asking for my passport and 100 THB (around $3). I was then given a health certificate. No doctor ever checked me out or even spoke to me.
This method is what the dispensaries are hoping to be able to use to remain viable as a business.
I suppose this could be a "two birds with one stone" sort of thing because even though it is hogwash, one of the main things the members of Parliament keep bringing up is that minors are getting a hold of weed. So I guess this could at the minimum enforce that the potential purchasers are going to at least have their ID's checked.
One of the dispensary owners that I know just happens to be located directly next door to an already existing clinic so this will work out nicely for him and probably the clinic owner as well.
I still find it profoundly stupid that they are getting rid of the recreational use part of the legislation but this work around is already being prepared for. If the government was smart, and I don't believe they are, they wouldn't bother making it illegal again but if they do, and it looks like that will end up being the case, the dispensary owners are already prepared for it.
Get ready for just about everyone that comes to Thailand to have some sort of "sleeping disorder" in the coming year.
Amazing how nothing will really change if you know how to counter act the threat.
There are a lot of senseless laws here in Thailand but one of the things that is kind of funny about these laws is that they are rarely enforced or someone comes up with an easy workaround for whatever regulation gets put into place.
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