Thailand Speeds Up Passage Of Laws Permitting Personal Cannabis Cultivation

Thailand Speeds Up Passage Of Laws Permitting Personal Cannabis Cultivation

Thailand is ready to accelerate its fledgling medical marijuana program. Anutin Charnvirakul, the country’s health minister, said Wednesday that the government will now permit household cultivation of six cannabis plants in an effort to bolster supplies for medicinal products, and provide another potential cash crop for people there. “We are in the process of changing laws to freely allow the medical use of marijuana,” he said in a speech in Bangkok, as reported by Bloomberg. “We have high confidence that marijuana will be among the major agricultural products for Thai households. We are speeding up the law changes. But there is a process to it.” The policy change was telegraphed in September, when Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai Party announced that it was proposing a bill to make it legal for the country’s households to cultivate up to six cannabis plants. Charnvirakul, who is also Thailand’s deputy prime minister, has made marijuana legalization a central part of the party’s platform. Bloomberg reported that he said in his speech that legalization for recreational use is a goal, but it likely won’t come to fruition in the government’s current four-year term, which just began in July (the Bhumjaithai Party is the ruling coalition). “We need…