“This is my main source of income,” said Punnathat Phutthisawong, 25, who works at a Bangkok cannabis dispensary. He told Reuters he was stunned by the order that landed in June 2025. “Many shops are probably just as shocked because a lot of them invested heavily.”
On Tuesday, Thailand’s health minister, Somsak Thepsutin, signed an order banning shops from selling cannabis to customers for recreational use. Stores may now sell it only with a prescription. The order also moves to reclassify cannabis buds as a controlled herb, though it sets out no penalty for violations. It takes effect once it appears in the Royal Gazette, and ABC News reported that no publication date was clear.
Why now
Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalise cannabis, in 2022. Tourism and farming picked up, thousands of shops opened, and ABC put the industry’s size at $1 billion. Public backlash followed, with allegations that thin regulation had put the drug within reach of children and pushed up addiction.
The ruling Pheu Thai Party had promised earlier to criminalise the drug again, but its coalition partner, the Bhumjaithai Party, fought the idea. That obstacle disappeared last week. Bhumjaithai walked out of the coalition after a phone call between Cambodia’s former leader and Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was leaked, exposing what looked like her mishandling of tensions on the border.
What the government and regulators say
Government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsu said unregulated access had caused serious social problems, particularly for children and young people. “The policy must return to its original goal of controlling cannabis for medical use only,” he said in a statement.
Phanurat Lukboon, secretary-general of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, said his agency was ready to study and carry out the changes. A study by the agency last year, he said, found the number of people with cannabis addiction rose sharply after decriminalisation.
Industry reaction
The Thai Chamber of Commerce had estimated that the industry, medicinal products included, could be worth $1.8 billion by 2025.
Cannabis activist Chokwan Kitty Chopaka argued that the sector could have transformed Thai agriculture, medicine and tourism, but that uncertainty and policy reversals blocked any lasting growth. “The cannabis industry has become a hostage to politics,” she said.
Daniel Wolf, an Australian tourist browsing the shops on Bangkok’s Khao San Road, doubted the ban could work. “There are shops everywhere, so how do they reverse this? I don’t think they can, it’s absolutely insane.”
