Signed, Stamped, and Still Unclear

I didn’t come to Thailand to write about cannabis.

I came for stillness. A break. Maybe to start a blog — something I’ve been circling for years, never quite sure what I had to say. I studied theater. Wrote monologues. Got interviewed on a few niche podcasts — not about cannabis, but about silence, about why people run from it. I thought my first post might be about travel. Or time. Or trust.

Instead, it’s about weed.

It started on a side street in Bangkok.

“Cannabis? No more legal next month,” said the man making me iced coffee with condensed milk.

I laughed. He didn’t.

A few days later, in Ao Nang, I asked a dispensary owner.

“Totally legal. You just say ‘back pain.’ No problem.”

Another shop:

“Only terminal illness. You’ll need hospital approval.”

A third:

“Relax. It’s all just noise. We’re fine.”

They all sounded sure of themselves. They all said something different.

That’s when I knew: something was happening — and no one really understood what it was.

In Krabi town, I met a young budtender who invited me for tea behind the shop.

“We all say different things,” he told me. “Because we hear different things. From YouTube. From customers. From each other. I just say: come while you can.”

And then, on a ride through the hills outside Ao Nang, I saw the sign.

CANNΛZON FARM – Indoor Cannabis. No Rush. Real Process.

No flashing lights. No cannabis leaf logos. Just a clean entryway, gravel paths, and — most surprisingly — a row of handmade tables near the entrance: solid wood, with cast concrete tops. Brutally simple. Surprisingly elegant.

The whole place felt that way: minimal, but intentional. Simple, but deeply considered.

A man nearby nodded toward me.

“Come on in — just avoid the hose. We’re rebuilding.”

They were removing a toilet.

Not because it broke. But because, under the new regulations, you can’t have a bathroom inside a cultivation zone that intends to meet medical-grade standards.

That’s when I understood — this place wasn’t reacting. It was preparing.

Inside, I saw drying rooms — cool, sealed, odor-controlled. Jars labeled not just with strain names, but with cure dates, batch codes, moisture logs. I saw staff cleaning surfaces in quiet rhythm. No PR team. No noise. Just work.

“The law already passed,” one of the growers told me.

“What hasn’t happened yet is enforcement. There’s an official delay — an evaluation period — to let farms and dispensaries adapt. But it’s coming.”

He explained that most people still act like nothing changed — but the ones who want to stay in the game are already shifting.

“You can’t flip a national market overnight,” he said.

“They gave us a few weeks. Maybe more. But we’re not banking on delays. We’re building now.”

And what happens when the rules do come into effect?

“You’ll probably need a doctor’s certificate to buy,” he said.

“Not a prescription — just a basic medical approval.”

I asked if that would slow things down for visitors.

He smiled.

“We’re already working on it. We’re talking to the clinic nearby — it’s just two minutes away. Or we might bring a doctor here, part-time. Or have a system where they call you, ask a few questions, approve on the spot.”

“We don’t know yet if the doctor needs to be physically here. That part’s unclear. But by the time you visit again — chances are, you’ll need that approval. And we’ll help make it simple.”

“Phone consult, in-person, or a short walk. Either way, we’ll guide you through it.”

I stayed at Cannazon longer than I planned. I watched their team — calm, quiet, clean-cut. Everyone trained. Everyone working with care. They’re building toward a future that hasn't arrived yet — but will.

And they’re doing it with no guarantee the payoff will match the risk.

“We're all in the same boat,” someone said.

“But we’re not all rowing.”

After I left, I stopped at two more dispensaries.

One was loud, lit in green LEDs, blasting hip hop. The other had laminated menus and a photo booth.

Both still sold freely. Both said they’d “deal with the law when it happens.”

And maybe they will.

Because right now, cannabis is still legal in Thailand.

But things are changing.

Here’s the situation as I now understand it:

- The government has officially passed a new cannabis law — restricting future sales to medical use only.

- But the law hasn’t taken effect yet.

- There's currently a deliberate delay — an adjustment period — for farms and dispensaries to meet the new standards.

- It could be a month. It could be two. No one knows for sure.

- In the meantime, everything continues as before — but with tension rising in the background.

Most people I met weren’t worried. They were used to chaos. They were betting it would get postponed again.

But at Cannazon, they weren’t betting on delays.

They were betting on readiness.

I didn’t expect my first blog to be about weed.

But now that I’ve written it, it feels like the right one.

Because this isn’t about cannabis, really.

It’s about how people prepare. How they choose to move, even when things aren’t certain.

And if you’re traveling through Krabi — and you see a sign that doesn’t shout — maybe turn in.

Not just to buy.

But to understand where this whole story might go next.

---

A day after leaving Cannazon, I decided to check out another dispensary — one that someone had vaguely recommended back in Ao Nang.

It was called **SeaRoot Collective**, right on the beach. A slick little shop with polished bamboo walls and a soft blue neon sign that said “Nature Heals.” The kind of place where flip-flops cost more than my motorbike rental.

Inside, the budtender was cheerful and talkative. When I asked about the new law, he nodded quickly, like he'd been waiting for the question.

> “No worries,” he said. “You just fill out a form — we handle the rest.”

A small clipboard appeared with a printed “Medical Use Declaration.”

I was asked a few questions:

Thailand cannabis prescription on beach table – tropical Ao Nang background,Krabi medical weed buds

– “Do you sleep well?”

– “Do you feel occasional pain?”

– “Do you accept that cannabis is for medical purposes only?”

There was no exam. No doctor. No real check.

After signing, I was given a copy of the form with a stamp that looked like it came from a gift shop. It said:

> **“Approved: 2g/day, 7 days, for general therapeutic use.”**

I asked if that was enough to buy anywhere.

He laughed.

> “Here, yes. Somewhere else? Maybe not. It’s per shop.”

Some shops, I later learned, wouldn’t even ask for the form. Others charged a fee just to print it — and some insisted the approval only applied to purchases made within their specific location.

> “You’d be surprised how many people think this is a national system,” said a guest I met later that evening. “It’s not. It’s just paperwork until it’s not.”

And that’s the thing.

There’s no centralized database. No unified protocol. No consistent expectation between shops, farms, or regulators.

Even the piece of paper I signed — useful in one place, meaningless in another.

Compared to the groundedness of Cannazon, the whole thing felt loose. Temporary. Transactional.

The deeper I went, the more it felt like a country in regulatory limbo — caught between the rush of commerce and the crawl of policy.

And yet, somehow, the market moves forward.

The jars stay stocked.

The joints still spark.

And the beach — with its wind, waves, and small glowing signs — keeps selling something that might soon require a lot more than a clipboard and a smile.