FDA chief insists ganja no longer narcotic regardless of cannabis control law
Thailand's Food and Drug Administration chief insisted on Thursday that all parts of ganja plants, including the buds, will remain legal no matter what the new cannabis and hemp control bill states.
FDA secretary-general Paisarn Dunkum was commenting as the House of Representatives resumed its second reading of the bill on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the House panel vetting the bill had agreed to remove Section 3, which stated that marijuana, hemp and their extracts will not be regarded as narcotics under the law. Paisarn is a member of the vetting panel.
The bill’s second reading was suspended in September when the House voted to send it back to the panel for revision. The coalition Democrat Party joined forces with the opposition and voted to send the draft back, citing a lack of protection for children. The Bhumjaithai Party, which engineered cannabis legalization, accused the Democrats of playing political games over the draft bill.
On Wednesday, MPs raised objections to Section 3 leading to its withdrawal.
However, its removal would not affect other sections of the bill, meaning ganja will remain legal, Paisarn said.
“If you ask whether ganja is still a narcotic, the answer is that it doesn’t depend on this bill. I hereby affirm that ganja is now not a narcotic under the Public Health Ministry’s directive.
“Simply put, neither the buds, flowers, stems, leaves nor roots of ganja plants are narcotics. Only extracts with THC levels higher than 0.2% are considered narcotics,” Paisarn said.
Asked what steps would need to be taken if the government wanted to relist ganja as a narcotic, Paisarn said the Narcotics Control Committee must first propose the recategorisation to the Narcotics Control Board. The board would then ask the public health minister to issue a directive relisting ganja as a narcotic, Paisarn said.
So far, the Narcotics Control Committee had not discussed returning ganja to the narcotics list, he said, adding that he was not aware of any government attempts to reverse legalisation. The new bill was merely aimed at controlling the use of cannabis and hemp for business and health purposes, he said.
Although the bill faces delays, ganja products are still regulated by other laws, he noted. If cannabis was eventually relisted as a narcotic, the whole industry manufacturing food, cosmetics and other products from ganja and hemp would have to be scrapped,” Paisarn said.
He said the FDA has so far registered 2,200 products with ganja or hemp as ingredients.
