It all began quite innocently. A staff member of a well-known public organisation ate a snack before starting a shift. Soon after, the person began babbling incoherently, unable to walk in a straight line -- let alone work -- with a supervisor claiming the staff member was "worse than drunk". As it turned out, the snack was a cookie containing an unspecified amount of cannabis extract -- the use of which was recently decriminalised by the government.
No, this was not an excerpt from a Grey's Anatomy episode -- it didn't happen to a group of privileged interns at a fictional hospital in Seattle. This very real episode transpired in Bangkok last week, affecting a TV station employee working with newscaster Sorayuth Suthassanachinda, who ultimately banned the consumption of cannabis in any form by his staff after seeing what it led to.
Also, the cookies weren't baked and brought in by a grateful patient -- in fact, they were readily available for purchase by anyone with access to the internet. A quick glance on social media platforms in the wake of the plant's decriminalisation and one can immediately see how quickly the market adapted to the so-called "Green Wave".
These days, an individual no longer needs to endure smoking a spliff to enjoy cannabis' mind-altering effects -- a sweet-tooth can opt for a macaron instead, while those concerned with sugar intake can go for infused drinks and tinctures. Given how creative Thais can be when it comes to snacks, these novel forms of intake are just the tip of the iceberg.
The market's capacity to adapt deserves praise, but the speed at which it is adapting is a cause for concern. Many consumers are novices, unlike producers, who are likely to have had more exposure to cannabis. In the absence of experience, many will use publicly available information to educate themselves -- which, unfortunately, is still not accessible to everyone. What's available instead are guidelines riddled with numbers and figures which aren't immediately understandable by the general public.
For instance, how should one know which products contain less than 0.2% THC by weight, unless it is clearly labelled? In fact, no one seems to know for sure the legality of cannabis consumption in Thailand -- is it a controlled substance, like alcohol is? Is it similar to cigarette smoking in public? Has its use been deregulated for household use? If so, then why was it recently recategorised as a controlled herb by the Public Health Ministry?
A cursory glance over the headlines in the past week or so gave no clear indication of what the government, as a whole, is planning to do next. Surely there is a better way of approaching the matter without having the whole thing descend into a mad game of Chinese whispers?
Yes, policies should be clearly communicated -- but for the message to actually resonate with the public, the policies should be coherent and show that authorities concerned know the very thing they are trying to regulate. As of now, the policies Thailand has in place reflect nothing more but the eagerness to reap as much profit from the trend.
But then again, can anyone say they are surprised, given that six-vaccine Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul -- with his track record of ambiguous statements and back-tracking on many issues including booster recommendations, is the one in charge of the policies?