FDS Insight Magazine Aug - Oct 2022

33 Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, drug policies are no less harsh. So far this year, four men have been hanged for drug trafficking offences in Singapore. Thousands of people have been killed extrajudicially by the police in the Philippines since 2016, and even greater numbers of people are being held under arbitrary arrest and detention in prisons and in compulsory drug rehabilitation programmes. The over-investment in law enforcement and criminal justice systems to carry out the broad scope of punishment imposed by drug laws around the region has led to the inadequate capacity of social and health agencies to deliver responses to drugs that are genuinely grounded in principles of health, harm reduction, and development. These impacts are comprehensively evident in Thailand, but in 2021, several drug policy reforms came into effect, starting with the legalisation of kratom (a plant indigenous to Southeast Asia and commonly used in some rural communities in Thailand as a mild stimulant to treat fatigue), followed by the establishment of the Narcotics Code (which contained reduced penalties and revised sentencing rules to reduce levels of incarceration and shift towards providing a health response to drug use), and continuing with the legalisation of cannabis in 2022. Uncertainties remain in Thailand’s path toward regulating cannabis On 9 June 2022, people lined up to make their first legal purchases of cannabis. Every part of the plant has been removed from the list of controlled substances under Thailand’s drug laws. Under these laws, activities relating to cannabis – from consumption to distribution and import/export – were previously met with fines, imprisonment and even the death penalty. Now, only cannabis extracts exceeding 0.2 per cent THC (the psychoactive component of the drug) remain illegal, which seems to primarily refer to cannabis oil. Oddly enough, detailed regulations on the definition of ‘extracts’, as well as the use, sale, and cultivation of cannabis, are yet to be released (although they are expected in September 2022). This has resulted in a temporary grey zone where – aside from a few rules (e.g., to prevent public nuisance, and prohibiting sales to people under 20 years of age and pregnant women) – there are virtually no restrictions on the cannabis products that are now widely available for sale. Mobile vans stop in areas with concentrated tourist traffic and offer either pre-rolled joints or a menu of different cannabis strains to choose from to roll your own joint. The government even started to give away one million cannabis plants to households, as people are now allowed to grow an unlimited number of plants at home for their own use. While statements from the Thai government insist that cannabis has been legalised for medical purposes, they remain vague on the extent to which non- medical use is allowed. In practice, it is