Government leaders in Thailand were once some of the most cannabis-friendly officials on earth. Thailand implemented a historic cannabis policy change in June 2022, declassifying cannabis from the nation’s narcotics list and allowing every household in the entire country to sign up to legally cultivate low-THC cannabis plants, of which a reported 1.1 million citizens of Thailand have done.
At the time of Thailand’s big policy change in 2022, the Public Health Minister indicated that there would be no plant limit for the government’s cultivation program. Thailand’s government also gave away over 1 million cannabis seeds directly to households that signed up. Additionally, the government gave out low-interest loans to help aspiring cultivators get their operations started.
The nation’s prime minister recently announced that cannabis will be reclassified as a narcotic in Thailand by the end of 2024, and that the nation’s cannabis shops will all be closed by April 2025. Thailand is currently home to an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 cannabis stores, depending on who you ask.
According to initial reporting by EuroNews, within the first year that cannabis was no longer a narcotic in Thailand, “the country’s weed industry was worth 28 billion Thai baht (€728 million) and by 2030 it was projected to reach 336 billion baht (€8.7 billion).”
In February 2024 Reuters reported that, “After Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to free up medicinal use in 2018, and then recreational use in 2022, tens of thousands of cannabis shops have sprung up in an industry projected to be worth up to $1.2 billion by next year.”
Statista lists the following information about Thailand’s emerging cannabis industry:
- Revenue from Thailand’s cannabis market is projected to reach US$410.80m in 2024.
- Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2029) of 2.96%, resulting in a market volume of US$475.20m by 2029.
Grand View Research reports that, “The Thailand legal cannabis market size was valued at USD 80.3 million in 2021 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 58.4% from 2022 to 2030.”
According to an analysis by New Frontier Data, cannabis consumers around the globe “spent an estimated $415 billion on high-THC cannabis in 2020” and that figure is expected to increase to to $496 billion by 2025.
“Much of the world has not yet legalized cannabis, and nearly all the demand resides in illicit or unregulated markets. In 2020, 94% of high-THC cannabis spend was in unregulated channels.” New Frontier Data states.
New Frontier Data has determined that sales of high-THC cannabis products through legal regulated outlets totaled $23.7 billion in 2020 and that legal sales are projected to reach $51 billion by 2025. New Frontier Data estimates that legal cannabis sales of adult-use cannabis “are projected to be double those of legal medical sales by 2025, despite the higher number of medical markets globally.”