Medicine dept taps 10 tonnes of pot

Medicine dept taps 10 tonnes of pot

Yield to produce 16 traditional medicines

Medical personnel study the Ministry of Public  Health’s guidelines on the proper administration of cannabis extracts during a training session in Bangkok in April. (Photo by Apichit Jinakul)
Medical personnel study the Ministry of Public Health’s guidelines on the proper administration of cannabis extracts during a training session in Bangkok in April. (Photo by Apichit Jinakul)

Three organisations have agreed to provide around 10 tonnes of cannabis to the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine to produce traditional medicines.

The department on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Office of the National Farmers Council, Kasetsart University's Chalermprakiat campus, in Sakon Nakhon province and Rajamangala University of Technology Isan, for cannabis research and development.

Under the agreement, the three organisations will provide the department with around 10 tonnes of cannabis to make the traditional medicines. The department will get seven tonnes from the National Farmers Council, two tonnes from Rajamangala University of Technology Isan and one from Kasetsart University in October.

Department chief, Marut Jirasrattasiri, on Tuesday told a press conference that this is the first time in over 60 years that cannabis has been legally used in traditional medicinal recipes.

The latest amendments to the Narcotics Act allow cannabis to be used for the purpose of medical treatment, and the department has also already approved 16 traditional recipes using cannabis as an ingredient.

"Safety is the prime concern. Whether it is from an organic farm or grown in the university greenhouses, the cannabis must be strictly inspected to make sure that it is free from heavy metals, pesticides and fungus contamination," he said.

Meanwhile, the National Farmers Council's secretary-general Sompoonsup Klavikorn said the council plans to start planting cannabis this month, after receiving a licence from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He added that the harvest period is in October, and the planting will be managed as a community enterprise in each region.

"We will plant organically and with native species. We will study the production costs, yield and quality at the pilot sites so that we can have a figure of the cost of production to present to the state authorities for areas commercially planted under a community enterprise," he said, adding that around 400 cannabis trees are planted on each rai.

The council plans to plant marijuana in four regions: Lampang province in the North; Kanchanaburi in the Central Plains; Buri Ram in the Northeast and Surat Thani in the South. The yield will be sent to regional hospitals that are providing the treatments.

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