Thailand

Kingdom of Thailand
ราชอาณาจักรไทย (taɪ.lænd) (TYE-land)
Wide-angle view of the Grand Palace in Bangkok with blue sky and lush trees, Bangkok, Thailand.
Capital	Bangkok (กรุงเทพมหานคร)
Continent	Asia
Subregion	Southeast Asia
Cannabis Status
Legal Status	Legal only for medical use
Status Since	2025
Enforcement	Active, monitored. Unlicensed sale or possession may incur fines or imprisonment.
Documentation
Growing Regions	0
Growing Areas	0
Accessions	0

Thailand (Thai: ประเทศไทย, Prathet Thai [prà.tʰêːt tʰāj]) has been noted since the late 1960s for the Thai stick, thick cannabis flowering tops packed densely on the stem. The physician Joel Fort wrote in 1965 that cannabis (Thai: กัญชา, gancha) was widely used in Thailand, particularly in the north-east, smoked in pipes or cigarettes or added to food. The ethnobotanist Marie Alexandrine Martin wrote in 1975 that across South-East Asia cannabis was grown a few plants at a time around the house, and that in Thailand it was grown more widely only, perhaps, in the north and in a few central regions.^{: 63, 67} She recorded many curative uses of cannabis in Thai medicine, and ground flowers added to the curry kaeng phet.^{: 71, 73} Since the formation of a new government in December 1971, she wrote, cannabis had "not appeared openly" in Thailand, and its use in popular medicine had been regulated.^: 67

The Cannabis Act, B.E. 2477, enacted on 26 April B.E. 2478 (1935) and published in the Royal Gazette on 5 May 1935, prohibited growing, possessing, importing, exporting and selling cannabis.^: 6 The Narcotics Act B.E. 2522 (1979) listed cannabis and hemp among the Category 5 narcotics, with criminal penalties for using, possessing, producing and trafficking them.^: 6 By the 1970s Thailand had become a major source of high-grade export cannabis, particularly the bound and cured inflorescences marketed internationally as "Thai Stick." Suppression campaigns, highland development projects and the introduction of foreign hybrid genetics reshaped cultivation landscapes during the 1980s and 1990s.

Thailand amended its narcotics law in February 2019 to allow the medical use of cannabis. In 2020 the Thai Food and Drug Administration alone licensed cannabis growing, which was permitted only for research and domestic medical use. A Ministry of Public Health notification that took effect on 9 June 2022 removed the cannabis and hemp plants from the list of Category 5 narcotics. Extracts stayed on the list, except seed extracts and extracts of no more than 0.2 per cent THC from plants grown in Thailand. Thailand thereby became the first country in Asia to allow cannabis to be sold, grown at home and used for recreation nationwide. Thousands of cannabis shops followed. In May 2024 the Minister of Public Health, Somsak Thepsuthin, said that the government planned to return cannabis to the narcotics list. He advised licensed growers to plant no new crops until the policy was settled. Cannabis had been listed as a controlled herb in June 2022, a listing narrowed to the flower that November; in June 2025 a replacement notification limited sales of the flower to licence holders and to patients with a prescription. The Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine enforces the rules on cannabis. Sellers who break the 2025 rules face a maximum of one year in prison and a fine of 20,000 baht.

By January 2022 the Department of Agriculture had collected, studied and propagated 39 varieties of native Thai and foreign commercial cannabis from 87 growing sources. Five cannabis varieties, among them Hang Kra Rog Phu Phan ST1, held the department's certificates of plant-variety registration. Growers of a Thai strain in Sakon Nakhon said in 2024 that the price buyers offered for their leaf had fallen from 10,500 to 1,200 baht a kilogram. They also said that investors were importing foreign strains to grow and sell at higher prices than theirs.

Cannabis in Thai Culture

Vocabulary

Thai Language (Central Thai)

The word for cannabis in Central Thai is กัญชา (gancha), derived from Sanskrit gañjā and cognate with Hindi ganja and Khmer kaanhcha. In formal contexts, including legislation and medical regulation, the commonly used term is "gancha".

The word กัญชง (ganchong) refers specifically to hemp, generally denoting fibre-type cannabis with low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. In regulatory language after 2018, gancha and ganchong were legally distinguished based on THC percentage thresholds.

ใบกัญชา (bai gancha) means cannabis leaf. Leaves without flowering tops were among the parts of the plant removed from the narcotics list from December 2020, and in January 2021 a hospital restaurant in Prachinburi began serving dishes made with them, among them fried leaves and soups with cannabis shoots.

ช่อดอกกัญชา (cho dok gancha) refers to the flowering inflorescence. In commercial retail settings, the English word “flower” is often used interchangeably.

The slang term กัญ (gan) is an abbreviated colloquial form used primarily among younger speakers.

Historically, the term ยาเสพติดประเภทที่ 5 (ya sēp tit praphet thi ha, “Category 5 narcotic”) referred to cannabis under the Narcotics Act B.E. 2522 (1979), the legal classification in force prior to removal from the narcotics list in 2022.

Legal History

Growing Practices

The Market

Supply Chain

Enforcement

Growing Regions

Region	Has conservation status
Northeastern Thailand	Endangered
Southern Thailand

Growing Areas

Area	Has growing region	Has conservation status
Phu Phan	Northeastern Thailand	Unknown

Bibliography

• Tanguay, Pascal (January 2024). Cannabis legalization in Thailand: Exploring impacts on markets and organized crime (PDF) (Report). Drug Policy Reform and Organized Crime Series. Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Retrieved 12 October 2026.

See Also

• Southeast Asian Gene Pool
• Landrace Cannabis
• Portal:Current Events