Welcome to ASIANNABIS: Thailand's Cannabis Rules, What Is on the Forum and How to Post

system · May 16, 2024, 9:51am

A knowledge-sharing forum for licensed cannabis farms, medical practitioners and industry professionals working legally in Thailand and Southeast Asia.

ASIANNABIS is a place to share practical knowledge about feeding, climate, pests, harvest, licensing and trade. Articles are written for conditions in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Every post must stay within Thai law.

This welcome post was rewritten in September 2026. Thailand’s cannabis rules changed in June 2025 and several more times during 2026. The forum now also covers much more than the first welcome post described.

Start here: Thailand’s cannabis rules today

In Thailand, cannabis flower is now allowed only for medical use. It may be sold only by a licence holder, and only on a prescription. You need four dates to understand the current rules.

Thai laws are dated in the Buddhist Era (B.E.), which is 543 years ahead of the Western calendar. So B.E. 2568 is 2025 and B.E. 2569 is 2026. Ministerial regulations and notifications take effect when they are published in the Royal Gazette, Thailand’s official journal for laws.

26 June 2025: cannabis flower became a controlled herb

The Notification of the Ministry of Public Health Re: Controlled Herbs (Cannabis), B.E. 2568 took effect on 26 June 2025. It made cannabis flower (the inflorescence, or bud) a controlled herb. This places flower under the Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine Knowledge Act B.E. 2542 (1999).

Here is what this means for anyone who handles flower:

Prescription only. Flower may be sold only with a PT 33 prescription (แบบ ภ.ท.33 in Thai). One PT 33 covers 30 days at most. It can be used only once and cannot be refilled.
No advertising. Advertising a controlled herb, including flower, is banned.
No online sale. Selling flower online is banned.
Certified source. Flower must come from sites certified under good agricultural and collection practice (GACP). GACP is the standard for how medicinal plants are grown, harvested, dried and recorded.

If you sell flower, check two things. Every sale needs a valid PT 33. Every batch must trace back to a GACP-certified site.

30 April 2026: stricter criteria for licence holders

The Ministerial Regulation on Controlled Herbs (No. 2) B.E. 2569 was published in the Royal Gazette on 30 April 2026 and took effect that day. It tightens the licence criteria for cannabis flower. Anyone licensed to sell, process or export flower must now meet each of these points:

Premises. You must control the premises or have the owner’s written consent. What to do: keep the lease, title deed or signed consent in your licence file.
Storage. Flower must be stored separately and must not touch the floor. What to do: store it on shelves or pallets in a separate storage area.
Qualifying status. You must hold one of the listed qualifications, for example a healthcare facility licence, a herbal product licence, a pharmaceutical licence, or folk healer (หมอพื้นบ้าน) certification. A cultivation site that supplies licensed buyers also qualifies. What to do: check which of these applies to you and keep the document on file.
Trained staff. At least one staff member trained by the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine must be present whenever you are open. This department is part of the Ministry of Public Health. What to do: plan shifts so that a trained person is always present during opening hours.
Odour and smoke. You need a system that actually removes odour and smoke. What to do: test it during normal operation, not only when the room is empty.

Licences issued before 30 April 2026 stay valid until they expire. At renewal they must meet the new criteria. Check your site against this list now, because fixing storage or odour control takes time.

Late June 2026: pre-signed blank prescriptions became a criminal matter

In late June 2026, the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine announced criminal action, including forgery complaints, over blank PT 33 forms. Practitioners had allegedly signed these forms in advance, and retailers filled them in later. The action can reach individuals, retailers, healthcare facilities and medical professionals.

Having a PT 33 on file protects a shop only if the document itself is genuine and was filled in correctly. A form that was signed in advance and filled in at the counter gives no protection. It also exposes everyone involved to criminal action.

If you run a dispensary, check every prescription on file. Note who filled it in and when, and confirm that its number appears only once.

28 July 2026: separate rules for food and drink advertising

The Criteria for Food Advertising B.E. 2569 apply from 28 July 2026. They cover how cannabis, hemp and kratom may be advertised as ingredients in food and drinks. Kratom is a Southeast Asian tree whose leaves contain active alkaloids. These criteria are separate from the advertising ban on controlled herbs.

The criteria require set warning wording and a reviewed advertising permit. They also ban certain claims. A business can follow the flower advertising ban fully and still break these rules with a single drink label.

If you sell food or drinks, check every label and post that mentions cannabis, hemp or kratom against these criteria.

Hemp: a low-THC bud is still a controlled herb

A flowering bud is a controlled herb whatever its cannabinoid content. Low THC does not exempt it. THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the main intoxicating compound in cannabis. So you cannot plan a business around selling low-THC buds freely as “hemp”.

People often confuse two thresholds:

1.0% THC by dry weight of the leaves and flowers is the limit Thai rules use to define a hemp plant.
0.2% THC is the threshold for extracts. The Ministerial Regulation on Cannabis or Hemp Extracts B.E. 2569 took effect on 26 April 2026. Under it, extracts above 0.2% THC are licensed only to three groups:
- Thai juristic persons (registered companies and other legal entities) that are not “foreign” under the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542
- state agencies
- the Thai Red Cross Society

Before you plan a hemp product, find out which threshold applies to it. Then have each batch tested and get a certificate of analysis. This is the lab report that shows what a sample contains.

Penalties, appeals and the draft law

Translator’s note: The 1999 Act sets the penalties behind these rules. Under Section 46, research, export, sale or processing of a controlled herb requires a licence. Section 78 sets the penalty for doing these without a licence: up to 1 year in prison, a fine of up to 20,000 baht, or both. The Act contains no “3 months / 25,000 baht” penalty.

Translator’s note: Under Section 52, a licence can be suspended for up to 90 days per order. Continuing business while suspended carries the same Section 78 penalty (Section 52, paragraph 2). Under Section 54, a licence can be revoked. After revocation, the person cannot get a licence under the Act again for two years. After that, any new licence is at the licensor’s discretion.

Translator’s note: The 2016 ministerial regulation on licensing for research, export, sale and processing of controlled herbs is B.E. 2559. It was published in the Royal Gazette vol. 133 part 103 Kor on 9 December 2016. Its Clause 8(1)(e) applies the same two-year ban to the company. The ban also covers the company’s directors, managers and other responsible persons. Before you take any shortcut, remember that the two-year ban applies to both the company and the people who run it.

Translator’s note: You can appeal an order to the Committee for the Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine Knowledge. The deadline is 30 days from the day you are notified (Section 70). An appeal does not stop the order from taking effect, so plan to comply in the meantime. The Committee’s decision is final (Section 71).

Translator’s note: The draft Cannabis Control Act is not law yet. The Cabinet approved the draft on 22 September 2026 and sent it to the House of Representatives. Until it passes, the rules above are the ones that apply.

What this summary is, and where to read more

This is a working summary for people running a cannabis business, not legal advice. The binding texts are the ones in the Royal Gazette and in the ministry notifications. Some forum articles rely on reports from law firms rather than the Gazette text. When they do, the article says so.

What you will find on the forum

Growing

Cultivation · Fertilizers · Substrates · Diseases, Insects, and Mites · Harvest & Post-harvest · Genetics & Seeds

Feeding schedules with real numbers for tropical conditions.
Choosing a substrate (the growing medium, such as soil, coco coir or inert media).
Pests and diseases that are common in this hot, humid climate.
Drying and curing.
Choosing seeds and clones for commercial growing cycles.

The fertilizer sections are organised by brand: CANNA, Grotek, House & Garden, BioBizz, FloraFlex, Guanokalong and Advanced Nutrients. A general section answers questions that apply to every brand. These include pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and flushing. EC measures how much fertilizer salt is dissolved in the water. Flushing means giving only plain water in the last days before harvest.

Medical, hemp and cannabinoids

Medical Cannabis · Hemp & Industrial Cannabis · Testing and Analytics

Medical practice under the PT 33 rules.
Cannabinoid wellness.
Novel cannabinoids, meaning less-studied compounds such as cannabigerol (CBG) and cannabinol (CBN).
Growing and processing hemp.
Export: GACP, good manufacturing practice (GMP, the quality standard for facilities that process medicines) and European certification (EU-GMP).
How to read a certificate of analysis correctly.

Business, compliance and trade

Safety and Regulation · Cannabis Business & Industry · Investment Solutions · Marketplace · GACP Farms · GrowShops in Thailand · Cannabis Shop in Thailand

Licensing and renewal.
Enforcement and penalties.
Export routes that have actually shipped product, not just routes that look possible on paper.
Directories of farms and shops.
Equipment, growing inputs and services between businesses.

Community

General Discussion · Community & Lifestyle · Consumption & Gear · Tourist Must Know

Introductions, photography and gear.
Visitors’ questions about what is and is not allowed.

Pick the two or three sections closest to your work and read their welcome topic first. That will show you what each section covers and how its members post.

Languages

Each article is a single topic, and all its translations are attached to it. This means a link you share works in every language. If you switch language at the top of the page or in your account preferences, the same article appears in your language.

English is the source language. Translations are made from the English version using a fixed glossary of terms and are checked before publishing. They are not left to automatic translation.

Set your language once in your account preferences, and every link will open in that language. If a translated sentence is unclear, reply under that topic and quote the line.

What you can and cannot post

No sale of cannabis flower or of anything that needs a prescription. This means no offers, no prices and no ordering channels, in any category.
No advertising of a controlled herb, including flower. For a licensed business this is a breach of the controlled-herb rules, not a minor technical issue.
No recreational content. Do not post anything written for places where cannabis is illegal.
Marketplace and vendor sections are only for equipment, inputs, services and trade between businesses. They are never for flower.
Give the source of every number. Other growers may use a figure from here on a real crop. If it has no source and turns out to be wrong, a farm can lose a harvest.

You can read the full rules in the Terms of Service and the Community Guidelines. Before your first Marketplace post, read the Advertising and Selling Rules topic listed above.

Getting started

Introduce yourself in the Community & Lifestyle section. Describe your farm, your practice or your business. Members can then answer your questions with your setup in mind.
Subscribe to the two or three categories that match your work, not all of them. Your notifications will then show only topics you can use.
Ask a specific question. “What is wrong with this plant?” gets a useful answer when you add photos, EC, pH, growing medium and week number. With these details, other growers can rule out possible causes quickly.
Post what you measured. A feed chart that worked through a Thai rainy season is worth more here than any general guide. Other growers in the region deal with the same heat and humidity.

Contact

Email: asiannabisthailand@gmail.com

Asiannabis is run by the Asiannabis Community. It is an independent platform and is not officially affiliated with any brand.

If you have questions about this post or the rules above, reply below this topic.