Thanabordee Chumpairut spent eight years sniffing, swilling and selling wine before taking up one of Thailand’s newest professions: bud-tending.
After Thailand decriminalised the sale of marijuana in 2022, there has been an explosion in weed dispensaries around the country and a growing demand for people to work at them.
Chumpairut, who goes by Top, wants customers to appreciate good weed just as much as they appreciate fine wine.
“The cannabis or the flowers have the same range of aromas and flavours as wine. And the curing process and the production process is also [quite similar],” he said.
“If you know about wine — the aftertaste or the aroma — for cannabis, we have the same thing.
“We call it terpenes, or aroma that you can feel from each individual batch when you smell it, just like smelling from the bottle of wine.”
Top is a daily weed smoker and self-described cannabis fanboy, so when the plant was decriminalised last June, he quit his job in the wine industry to take up his dream career.
“It’s the flower of the gods or the plant of the gods … it’s just such a beautiful thing,” he said.
“In every single moment of my job and my life right now, it’s all about happiness, love and sharing.
“It’s about education … we’re really new and we need more time to learn because we’re just one year after legalisation, there’s a long, long way to go.”
He now manages one of the 6,000 cannabis dispensaries that have opened across Thailand since June 2022.
Business has been steady and the industry had been tipped to be worth close to $2 billion by 2025.
But that projection, and the future of the industry, is now up in the air.
New government vows to end recreational cannabis use
Currently, people older than 20 who are not pregnant or breastfeeding are legally allowed to consume cannabis, but smoking is not allowed in public places.
Cannabis-infused foods and edibles are also allowed but can only contain up to 0.2 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
But enforcement is lax and there are widespread reports of shops selling stronger weed to younger customers.
A recent Chulalongkorn University study into cannabis-based drinks including tea, coffee and soda found almost 40 per cent of the beverages sampled exceeded the legal THC limit.
Thailand’s new government has vowed to clamp down on the industry and so-called “cannabis cowboys” within it.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has said he wants legal cannabis limited to medicinal use as “drug abuse is a big problem in the country”.
The Public Health Ministry has now released its draft cannabis bill, which would impose hefty fines and jail time in a bid to close the loophole for recreational use.
Under the new law, dispensaries that are already licensed would need to prohibit smoking of cannabis on their premises and not sell dried cannabis buds or equipment for people to smoke in their shops.
Top said he was not worried about the new laws and that the industry just needed certainty.
“We need more stability, we need more real action from the government like what we can do or what we cannot do, what we can sell or what we cannot sell,” he said.
Doctors want weed back on the narcotics list
Forensic pathologist Smith Srisont said the impact of the thriving cannabis trade was evident in his work.
As part of his job, he screens dead bodies for traces of illicit drugs, and he said he has examined an increasing number with THC in their system.
“The cases are higher compared to [2022] … and it’s common in the unnatural cases such as motorcycle accidents and suicides,” he said.
“[It is hard to determine THC as] the cause of death, but [in many cases] it will be involved in the cause of death.”
A recent seminar examining the impacts of cannabis decriminalisation gave an insight into why some medical professionals are concerned.
Data from the Centre for Addiction Studies published last year found almost 25 per cent of 18- to 65-year-olds had used cannabis since decriminalisation, up from just 2.2 per cent in 2019.
Cannabis smoking among 18- to 19-year-olds increased 10-fold from 0.9 per cent in 2019 to 9.7 per cent in 2023.
The conference also noted the number of patients seeking treatment for cannabis addiction had risen, as had the number of patients who sought treatment because they were feeling ill after using cannabis.
According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse Treatment (NIDAT), the number of patients presenting to drug specialist emergency rooms with cannabis in their systems was also a concern.
At its main treatment centre in Bangkok, 243 out of 1,243 emergency room presentations in 2022 were patients with cannabis in their system, compared to 1,072 out of 1,661 in 2023.
Most concerning for doctors was the increase in the proportion of patients in NIDAT’s psychiatric ward who were cannabis users, up from 8.3 per cent in 2020 to 32.15 per cent in 2023.
Dr Smith said the idea the drug was safe and innocuous was incorrect.
“Cannabis is not perfectly safe. The problem is that it depends on the receptors in your body,” he said.
“Some people have receptors that have the side effect to the cannabis so someone [could] use only a little and he will get psychotic problems.
“Someone else might use it and have a heart attack and die.”
Thailand ‘has come too far to go back’
It wasn’t only doctors shocked by the limited regulations when cannabis was taken off the narcotics list in 2022.
Pasit Chulajata had been working in the industry since the drug was legalised for medicinal purposes in 2018.
“Even as a person in the industry, we were really really surprised,” he said.
“Even a few days prior we talked to our lawyers like ‘is it really happening?’ because no-one like us in the industry expected this. We thought there was going to be a new law in between to smooth the transition, so we were as surprised.”
He said the hazy regulations had been hard for the industry to navigate and allowed “cannabis cowboys” to enter the industry.
“We know as a country there’s been some negative pushback, but I think the government is on the verge of tightening it up a little bit, which is going to protect people who need to be protected like young kids or mothers that are pregnant,” Mr Chulajata said.
“So I think we’re heading in the right direction. I think it’s good in general that there’s going to be more regulation to control, because without any regulation, people don’t know what they’re smoking, what’s going into their body.
“It’s going to bring better perspective to the cannabis industry as a whole as well, because now people are kind of like cowboys … everyone is doing what they want.”
He said he expected some businesses may have to close but that it was too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
“I think Thailand has come quite a bit too far for everything to go back. And I think the government kind of knows that as well,” Mr Chulajata said.
“If we do it right, I think Thailand has the potential to have a spotlight as a country [where the cannabis trade provides a] boost to the economy.”
The Thai cabinet will now assess the draft legislation and public submissions before the bill goes before parliament.
