Thai Cabinet Approves Bill Limiting Cannabis to Medical Use Only, Existing Shops Face a 2028 Deadline

Thailand’s Cabinet approved a draft Cannabis Control Bill on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, that would formally end the country’s quasi-legal recreational cannabis market and restrict the plant to medical treatment by licensed professionals and to research. Public Health Minister Pattana Promphat said cultivation, production, import, export and sale would all require three-year licences issued by the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine, and that cannabis could not be sold to anyone under 20 or to pregnant or breastfeeding women. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives, so it is not yet law, but it marks the government’s clearest commitment so far to shutting down recreational sales rather than regulating around them.

The bill’s harshest practical detail for the thousands of cannabis shops that opened after the 2022 decriminalisation is a hard deadline: existing shop licences would expire by 2028 at the latest, after which operators must close or convert their premises into licensed medical cannabis clinics. This builds on a year of steadily tightening rules — cannabis flower was reclassified as a controlled herb in mid-2025, a prescription (Form PT33, valid about 30 days) became required for flower purchases from September 2025, on-site licensed practitioners became mandatory at dispensaries from January 2026, and from April 2026 cannabis sales were restricted to medical facilities, pharmacies, herbal product retailers and traditional healers’ premises. Thailand media have reported over 7,000 cannabis shops have already closed as the rules tightened.

For residents and visitors, the direction of travel is unambiguous even before the bill clears parliament: buying or using cannabis in Thailand outside a medical prescription is being phased out, not merely regulated, and anyone running or relying on a cannabis business here should plan for the 2028 licence cut-off rather than assume the current grey market continues.