Cannabis products selling at a tourist spot in Thailand, the first country in Asia to legalise the drug. Photograph: Narong Sangnak/EPA

 

The once-banned drug is now on sale at market stalls, beach clubs and even hotel receptions. But the laws in this ‘pot paradise’ are blurry

 

by Katie Glass

Adistinctive sweet smell wafts through Fisherman’s Village night market on the Thai island of Koh Samui, drifting up between the sticky mango rice stalls and bucket cocktail vans. The Samui Grower cannabis stall is doing swift business tonight. A table is laid with glass jars, each displaying a different flowering green bud, with labels saying things like ‘‘Road Dawg’ hybrid THC25% 850TBH/gram”.

 

Elsewhere on the island, at Chi beach club, tourists lie on couches puffing ready-rolled joints and munching pizzas topped with green cannabis leaves. On Instagram, the Green Shop Samui offers a marijuana menu of fantastically named buds: Truffle Cream, Banana Kush and Sour Diesel, alongside hemp cookies and cannabis herbal soap.

 

Anyone familiar with Thailand’s notoriously hardline attitude towards recreational drug use might watch this and wonder if they’ve had too much to smoke. A country where narcotics offences have attracted the death sentence, and being caught with a joint at a full moon party has landed tourists in the infamous Bangkok Hilton, now appears to have done an about-face. In an apparent bid to attract tourists in the post-Covid slump, the Thai government decriminalised cannabis last month. Koh Samui’s streets are already dotted with dispensaries with names such as Mr Cannabis, and tourists tell of being offered marijuana openly at the reception of their hotel. Yet the laws around cannabis are far more blurred than this “pot paradise” suggests.

 

Full story: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/aug/11/thailand-aims-for-high-season-with-u-turn-on-cannabis-law

 

-- © Copyright The Guardian 2022-08-12

 

- Cigna offers a range of visa-compliant plans that meet the minimum requirement of medical treatment, including COVID-19, up to THB 3m. For more information on all expat health insurance plans click here.

 

Monthly car subscription with first-class insurance, 24x7 assistance and more in one price - click here to find out more!

6 minutes ago, webfact said:

A table is laid with glass jars, each displaying a different flowering green bud, with labels saying things like ‘‘Road Dawg’ hybrid THC25% 850TBH/gram”.

As usual aimed at the Farang, the prices are way over the top !!!!!

I expect another U-Turn outlawing recreation use an limiting it to for medical use 

IE; u'll need a medical card enabling you to purchase
BUT mi pen rai, the onsite dr will ask a few questions an issue it for ya  ????

I think I will have to update the definition of the expression "develop quality tourism"
Do you know Samba? 1 step forward, 2 steps back ????

7 hours ago, Marsupienemi said:

Do you know Samba? 1 step forward, 2 steps back

But next is one step back and two steps forward. ????????

On 8/12/2022 at 9:54 AM, webfact said:

"Road Dawg’ hybrid THC25% 850TBH/gram”.

300 baht for 5g in gardening market here in Pattaya.