Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has ordered Thailand's cannabis shops to shut by April 2025, bringing the country's brief experiment with liberalised cannabis laws to an abrupt end within the next twelve months.
He also called for the substance to be reclassified as a scheduled narcotic before the close of this year.
Thailand decriminalised cannabis in June 2022, with authorities actively encouraging home cultivation — going so far as to announce plans to distribute one million plants to households across the country to mark the occasion.
The framework, which permitted home cultivation for medical purposes and allowed the plant to be used in food and cosmetic production, quickly ran into difficulties when vendors began selling cannabis openly on the streets of Bangkok.
The government responded by introducing several new restrictions, driven by concerns about unregulated consumption — particularly among children. Thavisin pledged to overhaul the country's cannabis legislation to confine use to medical purposes only and bring recreational sales to a halt.
Before the prime minister's announcement, Thailand's cannabis sector had been valued at 28 billion Thai baht (A$1.16 billion) in the first year following the 2022 changes, with forecasts placing it at 336 billion baht ($13.86 billion) by 2030.
