Is Cannabis / THC legal in Thailand?

Also known as: weed, marijuana

Legal status

Cannabis in Thailand is a controlled herb, and that is neither the 2022 position nor a return to the narcotics list. The Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine's Controlled Herb (Cannabis) Notification B.E. 2568, effective 26 June 2025, repealed and replaced the 2022 controlled herb notice, and it makes เฉพาะส่วนของช่อดอก, only the inflorescence, the controlled part. Cannabis had left the ordinary narcotics list in 2022 except for non-exempt extracts, and on the research date the flower had not simply come back as Category V plant material: it sits on the controlled herb route, restricted to the statutory licence and medical prescription channel, while qualifying extracts remain a separate Category V question answered in this table's CBD row. The governing instrument here is the Traditional Thai Medical Wisdom Protection Act rather than the Narcotics Code, which is why this row's penalties look unlike every other row in the table. Nothing about this position generalises to any other substance listed here.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Neither a death penalty nor a life term appears anywhere in this row, and the distance between cannabis and the rest of the table is the point: a controlled herb violation can reach 1 year of imprisonment and a 20,000 baht fine, while a Category V extract falls under Narcotics Code section 148, which allows up to 5 years, or 1 to 15 years in aggravated trafficking cases, with no death penalty at all. The 2022 recreational description that English accounts still repeat was not current on the research date. Treating flower as freely tradeable is the specific error this row exists to correct, because the licensed and prescribed route is now the lawful one and supply outside it is not.

If prescribed or medical

Cannabis is the one row in this table where the dossier does establish a route. Under the B.E. 2568 notification in force from 26 June 2025, flower supply runs through the statutory licence and the medical prescription channel, so a prescription is central here in a way it is not elsewhere in this table. That route is a domestic supply rule and it is not a traveller rule: this reading did not establish whether a foreign prescription is recognised, whether an import permit exists, or what personal quantity a traveller may carry, and the 2026 implementation forms were noted rather than read for that purpose. Extracts are a separate question again, governed by the Category V conditions and the THC limits rather than by the controlled herb notification.

Documentation

Carry the Thai prescription and the licence documentation for the supply route, and treat any foreign paperwork as unestablished: the B.E. 2568 notification is what makes flower a controlled herb on a licensed and prescribed channel, and it was not read as recognising a foreign prescription or as setting a traveller allowance. Do not carry the 2022 description of Thai cannabis law, which is the single most repeated error about this country. The reading was taken on 20 September 2026 from the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine's publication of the Controlled Herb (Cannabis) Notification B.E. 2568, at https://www.dtam.moph.go.th/sub-law/42864/. No express open reuse licence was located on the cited page, so only the wording needed for verification is reproduced, with attribution and a direct link.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Thailand’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.