By Benjie Cooper
IG: @nuglifenews
YouTube: Lucid’s Vlog
Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly (NLA) submitted draft legislation for medicinal cannabis and kratom to the Health Ministry for review earlier this month. After the Ministry and the Cabinet had completed their assessment, they returned the amendment to the NLA with suggested changes.
On Friday, the NLA unanimously accepted the current version of the bill, which would amend the country’s Narcotics Act of 1979 (B.E. 2522) and reschedule cannabis and kratom for medicinal use under Category 2. Though one abstained, the other 145 lawmakers voted in favor of the amendment in its first reading.
Under the legislation, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board would determine where cannabis could be cultivated, and agencies like the Red Cross, the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO), medical personnel, and others will be permitted to possess medicinal cannabis.
The NLA will be forming a twenty-nine-member panel within the next seven days to fully review the legislation over a sixty-day period.
According to the Bankok Post, preliminary medicinal cannabis research efforts are already being made in Thailand as the Narcotics Suppression Bureau recently submitted 100 kilos of police-confiscated marijuana to the Department of Medical Sciences and the GPO to see if it could be used for medicinal purposes.
The DMS and the GPO released the results of their testing on Friday, which showed the presence of the pesticides chlorpyrifos and cypermethrin as well as heavy metals. Due to the contamination, the DMS determined that the cannabis samples were not usable for medicinal purposes.
Clearly there is a need to grow medical quality in the Kingdom, as the illegal ones as provided by the Royal Thai Police show, are not fit for consumption. Any such industry will need to take QA and QC sa the core of its operations.