Thailand Moves To Ban Recreational Cannabis Use

Thailand’s new government is moving ahead to pass new legislation banning cannabis for recreational use in a major reversal 18 months after the country became the first in Asia to decriminalize the plant.

The relaxed laws saw a lucrative cannabis industry catering to locals and foreigners alike boom across the Southeast Asian nation, but a new conservative coalition government came to power late last year vowing to tighten the rules and only allow medical use.

A draft bill was released on Tuesday by Thailand’s health ministry outlining hefty fines or prison sentences of up to one year for offenders – or both. It also welcomed feedback from the public.

Smoking marijuana in public remained illegal even under the relaxed laws, but the proposed new laws will ban advertising and marketing campaigns for cannabis buds and extracts, and other cannabis products.

An earlier draft bill failed to win parliamentary approval in November.

“We drafted this law to prohibit the wrong usage of cannabis,” said the health minister Cholnan Srikaew, reported Reuters.

“All recreational usage is wrong.”

CNN has reached out to Thailand’s Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew for further comment about the new proposal.