BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s health minister on Wednesday discouraged tourists who want to visit the country just to smoke cannabis, just two months after new laws were passed that largely decriminalized the drug.
“We don’t welcome those kinds of tourists,” Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters when asked about recreational marijuana use among foreign visitors.
In 2018, Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize cannabis for medical purposes. In June, the cultivation of cannabis and its consumption in food products was decriminalized, leading to widespread recreational use.
Despite the government’s desire to avoid an explosion in the recreational use of the drug, cannabis businesses that have special smoking rooms have had great success with locals and visitors.
Those who smoke it in public, however, risk a three-month prison sentence or a fine of up to 25,000 baht (694 euros).
Foreign arrivals are starting to pick up in the tourism-dependent country which expects to receive between 8 and 10 million arrivals this year.
Anutin Charnvirakul said recreational use could be explored once the drug is better understood.
“It could happen in the near future,” he added.
(Report Chayut Setboonsarng; French version Elena Vardon, editing by Kate Entringer)
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