Marijuana Growers in Thailand Are Being Undercut by Illegal US Imports

• Thailand’s health ministry took marijuana off its list of banned substances last year.
• But regulations have stalled in parliament, leaving legal marijuana in a state of legal limbo.
• American sellers have stepped into the breach, supplying dispensaries with cheaper weed.

Southeast Asia is famous for its harsh drug laws. So it was with great fanfare that Thailand’s military-led government legalized marijuana last year.

Since then, dispensaries have flourished across the country. They teach joint-rolling classes and offer stoned yoga. It’s all great fun.

But the goal of legalizing weed, an effort spearheaded by the country’s health minister and the leader of one of its biggest political parties, was to transform the country into a regional hub for weed product development and marijuana cultivation, supporting small farmers and the economy at large.

That goal has now run into two major obstacles. First is political deadlock in the country’s parliament, which has so far failed to pass the regulatory framework to manage it all (a problem many US states can relate to).

This has contributed to the second problem: Weed farmers in Thailand told Al Jazeera that they are being undercut by cheaper marijuana smuggled into the country from the United States. It doesn’t help that American weed is better — or at least stronger — than what is right now grown in Thailand.

“At the end of the day, my customers care more about the potency of the THC content rather than the origin of the weed,” one grower told Al Jazeera, noting US strains are typically higher in THC. “We need to protect the domestic market and support Thai growers and farmers.”

One weed seller blamed local corruption for both the failure to stop the smuggling and the stalled legislation.

“It turns out it’s just another fight between greedy men,” he told Al Jazeera.