Thailand hopes medical ganja will spark post COVID tourism recovery

[webfact]

Picture: Bangkok Business News

 

Decades ago hippies flocked to places like Thailand where laws were lax and they could enjoy the free flow of drugs - especially marijuana.

 

For many Americans and Europeans the 70s in particular featured the hippy trail that worked its way through Afghanistan and India to Thailand.

 

Now with certain restrictions being removed and parts of the "ganja" plant being made legal in Thailand the country's tourism minister is trying to revive the sector with the latest plan:

 

"The Medical Ganja Trail".

 

Bangkok Business News reported on the story and carried a picture of a flowering head or "bud". Yet this and the drug it contains - much sought after by those hippies of yesteryear - is still banned in Thailand and could get you jailed for smoking it.

 

What Piphat Ratchakitprakan of the Tourism and Sports Ministry has in mind is substances like CBD oil or what is labelled as "Namman Ganja" in Thai.

 

Medically approved remedies.

 

Piphat wants to promote health tourism as a means of kickstarting the tourism industry come October 1st - he sees this as the answer to pandemic woes that have devastated the sector.

 

So the billionaire minister is now joining up with health authorities and herbal remedy groups to promote facilities and tours in eight Thai provinces:

 

Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Ratchasima and Buriram in the north east, Lampang and Mae Hong Son in the north, Chonburi and Samut Sakhon in more central areas and Phatthalung in the far south.

 

This is his ganja trail for wellness. 

 

He pointed out that now legal restrictions have been lifted ganja tours were a great idea. He told the media the tourists could see where the plant is grown and even homestays would be part of the plan.

 

Tourists would love the health benefits, he enthused, and they would form an integral part of "wellness" programs at swanky spas.

 

Picture: Bangkok Business News

 

Even though they couldn't get high at least they could get well, was the message as BBN quoted many other health professionals espousing the health benefits of the plant. 

 

This should come as no surprise, notes ASEAN NOW. Marijuana is set to become a multi-billion baht business in Thailand though critics say only the elites will really benefit.

 

Thailand's health minister and DPM Anutin Charnvirakul was swept to power as leader of the Bhumjaithai political party on promises that every household could grow six plants and ordinary people would benefit.

 

Huge billboards with pictures of ganja leaves proclaimed his "vision".

 

But this has been watered down and modified as regulations about growing the plant have become reality.

 

While the idea that recreational use and smoking of the drug component of the plant would be allowed remain as far off as ever.

 

The truth is jail awaits people who think they can light up a spliff in Thailand and the authorities will turn a blind eye. 

 

Be warned. The route is medical and controlled, not the freewheeling days of the hippy trail. 

 

 

-- © Copyright  ASEAN NOW 2021-09-15

 

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[Airalee]

CBD oil and CBD isolate is so much cheaper and more easily available in countries like America that there really is no reason for it to even be a tourist draw.  
 

It’s almost like having “Centrum Vitamins” tourism and making it illegal for a person to bring their own bottle.

[TooPoopedToPop]

Just tell it like it is...

   "If you dig the buzz then don't bother coming."

[Metapod]

noone is going to come to thailand just for some cbd.

 

if they actually legalize weed though, that would be a massive game changer.

[Ireland32]

Get it together and legalize it , start a trend in SEA , in San Francisco everybody smokes Not even a big deal anymore 

[brucegoniners]

Now that I can get behind. So why is this country dragging their feet on this? They've been "testing" this for years. It's a boom industry in the states and elsewhere. MAKE IT HAPPEN!

[wombat]

Perfect for the Western tourist.
Genesis 1:29 meets Buddhism "up to you"

[orientalist]

But where is this elusive CBD oil? I've been waiting for 2 years and all the clinics can give me is 1.7% THC oil - not what I need.

[JustAnotherHun]

No dope no hope ????

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

"The Medical Ganja Trail".

I thought they'd scrapped the bottom of the barrel but no, there really are no depths that they won't plunder for a few baht.

Surprised they haven't legalised prostitution to get all the girls working again, 

[Dogmatix]

Complete fantasy to think that stoners will come all the way to Thailand for CBD tea or massage lotion.  They can get order these products online.

 

Now offering legally the products that stoners really want be a big draw and would allow TAT to come up with serious projections about the billions foreigners will dump on them. The cops in the Samui islands who control the ganja trade selling it to tourists, arresting them, selling it again would hate it.  

[Emdog]

4 hours ago, Airalee said:

CBD oil and CBD isolate is so much cheaper and more easily available in countries like America that there really is no reason for it to even be a tourist draw.  
 

It’s almost like having “Centrum Vitamins” tourism and making it illegal for a person to bring their own bottle.

Last time I visited my hometown of Portland, Oregon (3 yrs ago) it seemed there were more pot shops than 7/11s. Some even had billboards

[malibukid]

2 hours ago, brucegoniners said:

Now that I can get behind. So why is this country dragging their feet on this? They've been "testing" this for years. It's a boom industry in the states and elsewhere. MAKE IT HAPPEN!

blame America and the DEA who came to Thailand decades ago to interdict the opium trade.  wonder why the American Consulate is so massive in Chiang Mai?  the anti-canabis stance is just an atavistic effect of that program.  get real, its legal in a lot of States in the U.S. now

Edited September 15, 2021 by malibukid

[malibukid]

44 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

I thought they'd scrapped the bottom of the barrel but no, there really are no depths that they won't plunder for a few baht.

Surprised they haven't legalised prostitution to get all the girls working again, 

to admit that would cause big loss of face

[Will B Good]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Even though they couldn't get high at least they could get well,

That is the end of it then.

 

No high....pffftt!

[kiteman9]

It will never bring anyone to Thailand unless you can smoke the buds and get high. Stoners are not that stupid.

 

[unblocktheplanet]

Ya missed the bus on this one!

[WEBBYB808]

How?  When all the shops now are running the biggest scams in Thailand.   CBD the medical portion  of the plant is only procuced in an oil form.  These shops grinding leaves, or boiling leaves and adding to drinks are not providing a true product.   A customer  buys a coffee or a drink and ask for CBD added.  They sprinkle grinds of leaves or water thats boiled the leaves to a drink... its fake.  The customers are paying  for CBD and they arent getting what they pay for.  Its the biggest scam now as so many shops pop up daily.  If you are not getting and oil form of CBD added to your drink or what ever you order, you are being scammed and get no health benefits.   I have some beach front property  in Arizona,  and I will sell it dirt cheap if you want to purchase?  Scams are so easy to do in some countries. 

[spidermike007]

Legalizing all ganga, and not just medical ganga, is a good first step. And they are even behind on that one. It might attract 1,000 or so tourists a year. Not gonna revive a dead industry. 

 

Phiphat, just face it. You and Cha Cha sabotaged a $110 billion a year industry with your extreme cowardice. And lost a few million jobs.

 

You are both the "let's make the Thai people miserable" guys. 

[papa al]

3 hours ago, Metapod said:

noone is going to come to thailand just for some cbd.

 

if they actually legalize weed though, that would be a massive game changer.

puzy + herb?

whoa!

[Nanaplaza666]

3 hours ago, Ireland32 said:

Get it together and legalize it , start a trend in SEA , in San Francisco everybody smokes Not even a big deal anymore 

Not even a big deal anymore + they make billions in taxes , so i also say , Let it role and legalize it . That will be a game changer and will help them a lot and millions of more tourist will come to enjoy the beaches, bi..ches and the ganja.

[Colabamumbai]

<deleted> legalize it now, in every second store front for sale. 

[Airalee]

4 hours ago, Emdog said:

Last time I visited my hometown of Portland, Oregon (3 yrs ago) it seemed there were more pot shops than 7/11s. Some even had billboards

Yup…same in Los Angeles 

[AwwYesNice1]

4 hours ago, kiteman9 said:

It will never bring anyone to Thailand unless you can smoke the buds and get high. Stoners are not that stupid.

 

 

Need to up their cultivation and genetic strains also 

[thcosh]

Make the THC totally legal as it is actually defacto: I buy it online and smoke it daily, make me very high, so why not making it official ?

 

[connda]

Why would anyone from a Western country which have liberal medical marijuana laws - ie, where you can actually buy marijuana (flowers and leave) for medical purposes as opposed to running a medical gauntlet to get approval for a limited number of medical conditions in order to buy extremely expensive extracts made by special, connected companies.  It's still very illegal to possess marijuana for even medical purposes.  So - it makes no sense to come here as the medical marijuana industry is a joke.  And most liberal Western countries have either legalized it or decriminalized it.  Not Thailand. 

[mickyr55]

8 hours ago, Metapod said:

noone is going to come to thailand just for some cbd.

 

if they actually legalize weed though, that would be a massive game changer.

There seems to be absolutely nothing in this country that isn't about to spark a tourism boom, from sandboxes to coffee with pictures of ganja leaves on the cup,  the main thing lacking in all of these booms.....TOURISTS. 

 

[Lingba]

another hub in the making

[Sydebolle]

"Medical ganja will spark post COVID tourism recovery"

From a mental point of view, this statement is spot-on, and possibly adhered to closely by all those TAT-executives with their endless flow of yet more abstruse ideas pouring from their offices on an almost daily basis!

Well done, keep up the good work. It might not recover tourism but the TAT-boys will be happy about it anyway, me thinks! 

[Damrongsak]

Seems to me that Piphat Ratchakitprakan and his cronies are smoking all the buds when they come up with ideas like this.