Cannabis Operator Filing 10 billion baht lawsuit against government

Thailand’s move to reclassify cannabis as a narcotic threatens to trigger street protests and class-action suits by owners of thousands of dispensaries

Network of cannabis industry operators nationwide. Prepare to bring a lawsuit against the government as a wide-ranging impact that could affected the whole industry estimated to be worth over 10 billion baht.

The goal is to sue the government for at least 10 billion baht in damages and request that the court issue a protective order against the policy of turning marijuana back into a narcotic. This is consistent with the farmer community enterprise group’s request to the government to compensate for all investment in cultivation and the purchase all product that rest in stock

Leader of the Thailand Cannabis Association network stated that they will gathering cannabis operators that affected by the new weed policy and file a lawsuit against the government, This includes the gathering of cannabis workers’ unions to sue the state for additional remuneration.

Meanwhile many local enterprises had requires answers from the government in terms of clarity and a mechanism to pay for the compensate as well as a cannabis extraction factory business that requires significant investment capital, some of which exceeds 10,000 million baht. In addition, marijuana will be reclassified as a drug has had an impact on their operating market. As a result, buyers lack confidence and are unwilling to make purchases. Entrepreneurs are hesitant to move forward with marketing. There are no orders at the production site. And the growers don’t have anywhere to sell.

The irony is while this government has pushed to relax the state’s control of alcohol sales and consumption, it is moving to impose more legal restrictions on cannabis
Thailand’s nascent cannabis industry has battled legal uncertainties since inception as lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to regulate it. The first attempt to pass a bill to control cannabis use last year was blocked in parliament as part of political jockeying ahead of the election. The most recent attempt under the Srettha government to outlaw recreational use and tighten licensing rules on planting, sales, exports and imports of cannabis was stalled by bureaucratic process.