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When Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalise cannabis in 2022, it sparked a major tourism boom – and a domestic industry now worth $1 billion.

But now, the government is “harshing that buzz”, said Time magazine.

Last month, it imposed rules “designed to rein in the country’s ‘green rush'” and reclassify cannabis as a controlled herb, said CNN. Citizens now need a doctor’s prescription to buy the drug, restricting consumption to medical purposes. The public health minister also said he would “recriminalise cannabis as a narcotic”, according to the broadcaster, which would be a “major reversal from Thailand’s liberal approach“.

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After cannabis was decriminalised in Thailand, there was a “frenzy of investment”, said the BBC‘s Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head. There are about 11,000 registered cannabis dispensaries in the country. In parts of Bangkok, it is “impossible to escape the lurid green glare of their neon signs and the constant smell of people smoking”. This has “flooded the market and driven the price down”.

There have been growing calls to restrict the industry, but “the final straw appears to have been pressure from the UK“. A “flood” of Thai cannabis has been smuggled into the country, often by young people “lured by drug syndicates” into carrying suitcases of it home, because “very few regulations” exist in Thailand to control it. Last month, two British women were arrested in Georgia and Sri Lanka “with large amounts of marijuana from Thailand”.

The government’s “major policy reversal” has plunged the industry into “a state of confusion”, said The Guardian. Shops are “scrambling” with the new restrictions, and many owners fear the changes will “unfairly push out smaller businesses” that can’t afford to comply with rules or register as medical clinics. “Most of the registered shops will shut down”, or go underground, said store owner Natthakan Punyathanaworakit.

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