Thailand bans tourists from smoking weed

Thailand's health minister discouraged tourists from visiting the country if they wanted to smoke weed, just two months after new laws were passed that have largely decriminalized the drug.

Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that they don't welcome those kinds of tourists, because they were asked about recreational marijuana use among foreign visitors.

In 2018, Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to legalize cannabis for medical use. The entire plant was decriminalized in June, leading to widespread recreational use.

Despite the government's pleas against getting high, cannabis businesses with special smoking rooms have been a hit with locals and visitors.

Foreign arrivals start to pick up in the tourism-reliant country because of the three-month jail sentence or fines of up to 25,000 baht $705.82. Southeast Asia's second-largest economy expects to bring in between 8 million and 10 million arrivals this year, above an earlier forecast of 7 million.

Last year the pandemic slashed foreign arrivals to just 428,000, compared to a record of nearly 40 million in 2019.

Thailand has focused its cannabis policy on the 28 billion baht of $790.29 million industry built around its medical and health benefits.

Anutin said that recreational use could be explored once there was a better understanding of the drug.

He said it might come in the near future.

Thailand has a policy that has drawn interest from regional neighbours like Malaysia, which is studying the use of cannabis for medical purposes.