In 2022 Thailand took the cannabis plant off its narcotics list. In 2025 it made cannabis flower prescription-only. Parliament did not pass a cannabis law for either change. Ministers made both changes with notices issued under older laws. That difference explains most of the arguments about whether cannabis is “legal” in Thailand.
This first part covers the rules up to the end of 2024. It explains what the law looked like before 2022 and what changed in June 2022. It also explains why the system that followed could be changed so quickly. Part 2 covers the June 2025 prescription rules, the two ministerial regulations of 2026, and what each group of readers should check now.
Translator’s note: This article covers Thai law only. If you grow in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia or elsewhere in Southeast Asia, nothing here gives you permission to do anything. For the rules in your own country, read Cannabis Laws Across Asia and Key Global Markets — 2026 Update.
1. How to Read This Article
Where the facts come from
Most English-language information on Thai cannabis law comes from law-firm summaries. Those summaries alone could not confirm the exact name of the 2025 rule. So the original Thai text was read directly in the Royal Gazette (ราชกิจจานุเบกษา). The Gazette is the official government publication, and a rule must be printed there before it takes effect. The entry is Vol. 142, Special Part 229 ง (Ngor), dated 25 June 2025.
The dates and the parent law in this article come from that Gazette text. The text is two pages long and contains no English at all. So every English name for it that you see online is somebody’s own translation. When sources disagree, this article names the source next to each fact, so you can see the disagreement for yourself.
Thai law uses Buddhist Era (B.E.) years. To get the Western year, subtract 543. For example, B.E. 2568 is 2025 and B.E. 2542 is 1999.
Who the sources are
- Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. Its entry on cannabis in Thailand is used for background. It is a secondary source, so it is used together with other sources where possible.
- Nishimura & Asahi, a Japanese law firm with a Bangkok office. Its 2022 legal note covers the 2021–2022 changes.
- Silk Legal, a Bangkok-based law firm that publishes English summaries of Thai law.
- FOSR Law (Formichella & Sritawat), a Bangkok-based law firm that has described how Thai cannabis rules were run between 2022 and 2025.
- An unnamed explainer: an English-language website on Thai cannabis rules, up to date as of July 2026. The original article does not name it. Where it is the only source for a figure, that figure is marked as unconfirmed.
The naming problem
Many English posts mention a “Controlled Herbs Act B.E. 2568 (2025)”. None of the sources used here describes an Act with that name. What actually exists is a ministerial notification on controlled herbs (cannabis). An Act (พระราชบัญญัติ) has to pass Parliament. A notification (ประกาศ) is signed by a minister, using powers from an Act that already exists.
Here, the existing Act is Thailand’s traditional medicine law of B.E. 2542 (1999). Silk Legal calls it the Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medical Knowledge Act and cites its Section 46 for licensing. Nishimura & Asahi call the same law the Act to Protect and Promote Traditional Thai Medicine Wisdom. Its Thai title is พระราชบัญญัติคุ้มครองและส่งเสริมภูมิปัญญาการแพทย์แผนไทย พ.ศ. 2542. This article calls it “the traditional medicine Act of 1999”.
The Nishimura & Asahi note also shows that this Act was already used to control cannabis in 2022, three years before the 2025 notification. Two ministerial regulations from early 2026 are also part of today’s rules. Part 2 explains them.
What to do: If a buyer, consultant or document mentions a “Controlled Herbs Act 2025”, assume they are working from a second-hand summary. In your own licence files and contracts, use the Thai title of the notification: ประกาศกระทรวงสาธารณสุข เรื่อง สมุนไพรควบคุม (กัญชา) พ.ศ. 2568.
2. Before 2022: Where Thailand Started
The laws that made the plant illegal
According to Wikipedia, cannabis was made a crime by two laws, one after the other. The first was a Cannabis Act of B.E. 2477. Wikipedia converts that year to 1935, but the usual subtraction gives 1934, and no second source settled which year is right. The second was the Narcotics Act B.E. 2522 (1979), which again made possession, cultivation, sale and use illegal.
Nishimura & Asahi add a later step. In November 2021, Thailand published the Act Prescribing the Use of the Narcotics Code B.E. 2564 (2021) in the Royal Gazette. The Code took effect in December 2021 and replaced the 1979 Act. So when cannabis left narcotics control in 2022, it left a Narcotics Code that had been in force for only a few months.
Penalties: what is known and what is not
Before 2022, cannabis was listed in Category 5, one of the groups in Thailand’s narcotics list. None of the sources used here gives the prison terms or fines for Category 5 offences before 2022. The consequences clearly included prison, though. Wikipedia records that about 4,200 prisoners were released when cannabis came off the list.
Thailand had also opened a medical route before 2022. According to Wikipedia, in 2018 Thailand became “the first Asian nation to legalize medical cannabis”, with a prescription required. So the 2025 prescription rule brought back an older idea rather than inventing a new one.
What to do: Check the date of any guide, video or forum post about Thai cannabis law before you rely on it. Anything written before 2022 describes the narcotics system, which no longer applies to the plant.
3. June 2022: What Left the Narcotics List, and What Stayed
The notification and its dates
Nishimura & Asahi name the instrument “Notification Re: Prescribing the List of Narcotics Under Category 5”. It was issued on 8 February 2022 and published in the Royal Gazette on 9 February 2022. It took effect only “120 days after the date of its publication”, which is about 9 June 2022. Because of that 120-day gap, some accounts date the change to February and others to June.
The plant left, but strong extracts did not
Wikipedia says “the cannabis flower was officially removed from the country’s narcotics list”. In practice, this decriminalised use and possession, because plant material left Category 5. Extracts did not leave the list without conditions.
The dividing line was 0.2% tetrahydrocannabinol by weight. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main intoxicating compound in cannabis. According to Wikipedia, extracts and products made from them, such as edibles, supplements and cosmetics, became legal below 0.2% THC. Products with more THC “continued to require a medical prescription”. Hashish and other stronger extracts stayed in Category 5.
Nishimura & Asahi quote the same exemption from the other side: an “extract substance containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) not exceeding 0.2 percent per weight but only for a substance authorised to be extracted from cannabis or hemp grown in Thailand”. Many summaries leave out the second condition: the plant had to be grown in Thailand.
The difference people miss
Put simply, the plant came off the narcotics list, but concentrated extracts above 0.2% THC stayed on it. Any argument that starts with “but cannabis is legal in Thailand” fails at this point.
What to do: If you make or sell an extract, edible or cosmetic, keep two documents for every batch. The first is the lab certificate showing its THC percentage by weight. The second is a record showing that the raw material was grown in Thailand. Together they show which side of the 2022 line the product falls on. (The rules for extracts were tightened again in 2026. See Part 2.)
4. Registration for Home Growers
Wikipedia describes growing after 2022 as a duty to register, not a licence. Anyone who wanted to grow “must register with the country’s Food and Drug Administration”, using an application called Plookganja (“to plant cannabis”). Wikipedia mentions no limit on the number of plants per person. You told the authorities about your plants; you did not ask for permission. The system was light because there was no Act behind it to define a licence.
Translator’s note: If you registered between 2022 and 2024, find your registration confirmation now. Keep a printed copy with your grow records. It is your evidence that the plants were declared. If you cannot find it, ask the Thai Food and Drug Administration, which ran the Plookganja system, whether your record can still be retrieved. Registration is not a licence to sell. Since June 2025, flower may only be sold to a buyer with a PT 33 (ภ.ท.33) prescription (see Part 2).
5. The Rules That Arrived Within Days
Cannabis became a controlled herb in 2022
Nishimura & Asahi record a controlled-herb notification dated 16 June 2022, issued under the traditional medicine Act of 1999. It allowed people over 20 to possess and use cannabis. It banned smoking cannabis in public. It also banned selling cannabis to people under 20 and to pregnant or breastfeeding women.
So cannabis became a controlled herb (สมุนไพรควบคุม) in 2022, not 2025. The 2025 notification tightened that status. It did not create it.
Smoke and smell as a public nuisance
Nishimura & Asahi date a Ministry of Public Health nuisance notification to 14 June 2022. It was published in the Gazette on 15 June 2022. It treats as a nuisance “smoke or odor from cannabis, hemp, or other types of plants which may deteriorate or harm the health of bystanders.”
Penalties come from the Public Health Act B.E. 2535 (1992). They are up to three months in prison, a fine of up to 25,000 baht, or both. Wikipedia gives the same figures.
Translator’s note: This rule covers smell as well as smoke. In many Thai homes, such as shophouses, townhouses and condos, walls are shared and windows stay open. Smell from a flowering room or drying room reaches neighbours easily. If you grow or dry at home, fit a carbon filter on the exhaust fan. Point the exhaust away from your neighbours’ windows. This lowers the chance of a neighbour complaining under this rule.
6. The Grey Period, 2022 to 2025
On 8 June 2022, the House of Representatives voted on the draft Cannabis and Hemp Act. The House agreed in principle by 373 votes to 7, with 23 abstentions. Agreeing in principle is only the first step, not a law. FOSR Law says the draft “stalled in parliament”. The unnamed explainer says it “stalled before the readings needed to become law.”
So the rules in use did not come from a cannabis Act. They came from ministerial notifications under other laws, mainly the traditional medicine Act of 1999 and the Public Health Act of 1992. Provinces added their own measures. FOSR Law calls this a “hybrid regulatory framework”. Health, traditional medicine, interior, provincial and local authorities all issued rules. There was no single cannabis law and no single licensing body.
Why this made the rules easy to reverse
One notification can be replaced by another. That needs no majority in Parliament, no three readings and no deal between coalition parties. A business that expected the 2022 rules to last was depending on a single minister’s decision. In June 2025, a new notification did change the rules, as Part 2 explains.
Translator’s note: The draft that stalled in 2022 has since been rewritten as the draft Cannabis Control Act. The Cabinet approved this draft on 22 September 2026 and sent it to the House of Representatives. It is not law yet. See The Draft Cannabis Control Act for where it stands.
What to do: Before you invest in a grow room, a shop lease or equipment on credit, assume the rules can change without a vote in Parliament. Keep contracts short or add an exit clause. That way, a rule change does not leave you stuck with costs you cannot recover.
7. Advertising and Selling: The Short Version
Silk Legal states that advertising cannabis flowers “is banned across all platforms.” This article does not cover advertising in detail. Three other topics on this forum do:
- Advertising and Selling Rules for Cannabis in Thailand
- Licence Suspension and Revocation in Thailand
- How to Promote Your Cannabis Shop in Thailand Without Losing Your Licence
Translator’s note: Under the June 2025 notification, both advertising and selling cannabis flower online are prohibited. This applies to social media and to this forum. Read the advertising topic above before you post anything about flower you grow or sell.
If you have questions about these rules, or if what you see in your province differs from this article, post below this topic.
References
- Royal Gazette (ราชกิจจานุเบกษา), Vol. 142, Special Part 229 ง, 25 June 2025: Notification of the Ministry of Public Health Re: Controlled Herbs (Cannabis), B.E. 2568.
- Wikipedia, entry on cannabis in Thailand.
- Nishimura & Asahi, legal note on Thai cannabis rules (2022).
- Silk Legal, summary of Thai cannabis rules.
- FOSR Law, summary of Thai cannabis rules.
- Unnamed English-language explainer on Thai cannabis rules (current to July 2026).
This article is part of the Asiannabis Community educational series on cannabis law and safety. It is general information, not legal advice. The rules have changed many times, so check the current position before you act. Content is for educational purposes within jurisdictions where cannabis is legally permitted.
Continued in Part 2: Thailand’s Cannabis Rules, 2022 to 2026: Prescription-Only Flower, the 2026 Regulations and What to Check Now (Part 2 of 2)