Cannabis cafe now opened in Thailand

• Cannabis cafes are sprouting up across Bangkok.
• Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to legalize medical marijuana in 2018.
• An increase in recreational use and increased tourism revenue for local businesses can be seen.

The RG420 cannabis cafe debuted just four days ago in Khao San, a renowned backpacker district in Bangkok, and it’s already packed.

Several similar businesses have sprouted up across Bangkok since Thailand decriminalized the plant in June, just weeks before it lifted COVID-related restrictions on international travelers.

Foreign arrivals fell from roughly 40 million in 2019 to 2 million in the first half of 2022, and RG420 owner Ongard Panyachatiraksa and others like him see their cafés as key to efforts to resuscitate a tourist industry that contributed around 12% of GDP before the pandemic.

He claims that hundreds of people visit the café every day and that he hopes to open others.
“Europeans, Japanese, Americans — they are looking for Thai sativa,” Ong-ard told Reuters, referring to a cannabis strain. “Cannabis and tourism are a match.”

Not everyone supports the view.

Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to legalize medical marijuana in 2018. The entire cannabis plant was decriminalized in June.

This has resulted in an increase in recreational use, which government officials, concerned about the negative effects on health and productivity often associated with uncontrolled use of the drug, have retroactively attempted to discourage.

“The law does not cover recreational cannabis use… and so tourism promotion is focused on medical (aspects),” the national tourism authority’s Deputy Governor, Siripakorn Cheawsamoot, said.

The pushback against how the new policy is being interpreted has caused some confusion, with authorities issuing piecemeal regulations such as prohibiting public smoking of cannabis and selling it to people under the age of 20.

A parliamentary committee is currently debating a bill to regulate cannabis use, which is expected to be completed in September and may have an impact on cannabis cafes.

Akira Wongwan, a medical cannabis entrepreneur and committee adviser, predicted that recreational use would be subject to zoning laws.

Meanwhile, Briton Malik Khan has just finished rolling a joint in the crowded smoking room at RG420 (a reference to Rag Gan, a Thai expression meaning “love each other”).

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