Marijuana high jinks
The government is still unable to articulate a coherent policy on currently illicit drugs. While there obviously is some support inside the cabinet to liberalise laws, no rational programme has yet emerged. Senior ministers up to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha refuse to touch the subject. And the same situation holds within the Royal Thai Police. Police departments concerned support a new policy of liberalisation but at headquarters, the police chief still can’t get past the failed war on drugs.
The newest influential voice seeming to favour a gentle but real liberalisation is Deputy Agriculture Minister Wiwat Salayakamthorn. Last week he made an encouraging statement supporting legal marijuana plantations. Where previous advocates called for decriminalising amphetamines and methamphetamine, Mr Wiwat put the spotlight on marijuana.
The government recently opened the way for farmers and companies to grow a type of hemp without the component that marijuana smokers seek for a high. Commercial hemp is used to produce a limited number of products like rope. But the eyes of the world and many Thais are on hemp with the tetrahydrocannabinol molecule. That is THC, the chemical that gives recreational smokers their kick. More importantly, it is what science uses to transform common marijuana into a substance with medical properties.
An almost perfect example of the lack of coordination has just got under way in the Northeast. As Mr Wiwat was giving a rather confusing opinion of the marijuana situation, a positive step was begun, and even published on Jan 6 in the Royal Gazette. Farmers, the Ministry of Public Health and the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) signed an agreement on a marijuana research project in Sakon Nakhon province.
There may be no better place for this pilot programme. Sakon Nakhon is where the country’s strongest THC-content hemp grows. The plant grows in the wild as well as on (until now) illegal fields. Authorities and agricultural experts will join the programme to ensure security of the crops, and provide controlled samples to the scientific laboratories. This type of research, stretching from the top of government into the farmers’ fields, will hopefully become a model.
That fact is that in the past decade, medical uses for THC-grade marijuana have been found that go far beyond simply smoking a marijuana cigarette. The greatest advances by far have been in Britain. Drugs have been developed with THC and cannabinoid that relieve cancer pain, reduce spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients, and prevent or reduce nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing cancer treatment.
Marijuana-based pharmaceuticals approved and in use in the UK and many other countries claim to protect the brain from damage and then aid in memory restoration after surgery. A drug called HU-308, still under testing, appears to reduce hypertension. At least two others still being tested on humans show they reduce appetite and so aid in weight loss.
Exactly because marijuana has been illegal worldwide for so long, science and pharmaceutical companies have been unable to conduct proper tests. Until recently, the value of “medical marijuana” was based completely on anecdotal testimony of individuals. Many of them simply wanted the marijuana. But now science is discovering exciting, legitimate medical uses for the drug.
The government should move quickly to expand its policy of legal marijuana plantations. Crops should be controlled but available to science for testing and development. The myopia about illicit drugs of the past four decades should be lifted. It is past time the government took a proper and useful look at outdated, harmful and unnecessary drug laws, and got behind a true programme of reform of the legislation to present to the nation.