Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with marijuana motifs and handling out samples, around 200 backers of Thailand’s liberalized marijuana regulations rallied Tuesday at Government House in Bangkok to protest the possible rollback of the drug’s recent decriminalization.
Marijuana for medicinal purposes was made legal in June, but
the absence of a special law specifying the conditions for its cultivation and
sale allowed the growth of a recreational marijuana industry. The demonstrators
don’t want rules that would restore tight restrictions on the drug.
Sale and use of marijuana, generally called cannabis in
Thailand, were effectively decriminalized when the Public Health Ministry
dropped it from its list of what it deems “narcotic” drugs.
The move was a key policy of Public Health Minister Anutin
Charnvikul, who foresaw huge economic potential in the medical marijuana
market. It could particularly benefit farmers, who make up a major part of the
constituency of Anutin’s Bhumjai Thai Party. But no special regulatory
legislation has been passed so far.
Cannabis shops have sprung up in many Bangkok neighborhoods
along with mobile dispensaries and street stalls, even though police warned
that consumption would only be allowed in private, and sales would not be
allowed to youths or near schools.
The open sales have upset many conservatives, leading to a
call for marijuana — or at least the psychoactive parts of the plant used to
get high — to be put back on the narcotics list.
Tuesday’s rally brought together cannabis farmers and shop
owners who stand to lose out financially, as well as smokers who want to enjoy
marijuana without harassment. They gathered near Government House because the
national Narcotics Control Board was meeting there to consider the situation.
“We want to ensure that these politicians are not trying to
put cannabis on the narcotics list again. If that happens, our fight for years
will mean nothing,” Akradej Chakjinda, a coordinator of Cannakin, a network of
cannabis decriminalization supporters, told The Associated Press.
A proposed Cannabis Act to implement Anutin’s
decriminalization policy is to be introduced in Parliament on Wednesday, but it
may take several weeks to come to a vote. It is possible it will not pass
because opposition parties joined by the Democrat Party, a member of the
governing coalition, argue that cannabis should be strictly controlled as a
narcotic drug until a law with adequate regulations is in place.
Earlier this month, in a move to ease the pressure to roll
back deregulation, the Public Health Ministry announced a new ministerial rule
to more strictly control the promotion and sale of marijuana buds. However, it
has not yet come into effect.
Separately, the Administrative Court on Monday accepted a lawsuit
filed by a doctor and opposition lawmakers seeking an order to nullify the
ministry’s decriminalization of marijuana. Anutin and the Narcotics Control
Board are co-defendants.
Nutthawut Buaprathum, a co-plaintiff, said it is better to
put marijuana back on the narcotics list until the proper laws are in place. He
is a member of the opposition Move Forward Party, which initially supported
decriminalization.
“We know that marijuana has a lot of benefits, so we gave
full support to decriminalize it. But we did not expect that the Cannabis Act
would take this long and that this would cause a lot of negative impacts on
society because of no proper laws and regulations,” Nutthawut said.