Journalist/author David Downs spends a month smoking through Siam—finding more freedom under re-prohibition than in legal US states.
Editor’s Note: On July 22, 2025, Thailand’s Health Minister announced the country’s 3-year-old legal cannabis industry—with over 20,000 stores—would go back to medical-only and be subject to new regulations. Mass inspections resulted in 7 prosecutions for unlicensed sales, reports state. It sounds foreboding, but the lived experience of one cannabis-loving tourist proves quite different. Our High Times contributor found world-class strains and flavors, and indeed more freedom than consumers in legal states experience.
Eye Candy, Khao San Road, Bangkok, July 16
On day 1 in Bangkok, I find legit Compound Genetics Eye Candy (Biscotti x The Menthol) in the ground-floor shop of my hotel on Khao San Road. It’s 500 baht or about $18 a gram. Not a deal, but not highway robbery either.
I roll up and puff by my rooftop pool, and try to stay downwind of the other guests. The hotel bartender doesn’t bat an eyelash. Just a few blocks away, the golden spires of nearby temples glitter through hazy, tropical waves of heat.
The Eye Candy is accurate-looking, if a bit stepped on, and accurate-tasting, but just OK. Heat and humidity punish flower here in the tropics, no matter how well you grow and dry it.
I know Thailand legalized weed in June of 2022, had an industry explosion to 20,000 stores, plus vending machines and mobile carts selling vape carts. But then the country backtracked and re-medicalized it in June of 2025.
I am on a news detox, however, so I don’t know the latest. I’m just living it. Traveling with a wife and kids, I am not about to derail the family trip with an arrest or fine. I am resigned to a tolerance break and leery of any sprayed-on terps or synthetic cannabinoids. But yeah, those reservations appear unfounded.
No one at the clubs volunteers any news, or cards me, and I don’t ask. I only see traffic cops, except for one early morning, where officers seem to be inspecting one shop.
Across the street from the hotel, Leafly Strain of the Year 2023 Permanent Marker flashes on a digital sign carousel.
At a famous international cannabis brand’s retail store down the road, they show off some pretty basic mids. Out front, a vendor sells big, black edible scorpions and alligator meat. Or crocodile meat. Not sure.
I decide it’s safe to bring the Eye Candy with me on the night train to Chiang Mai.
Tea Time, Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, July 20
Acting on a tip, I find dead-on, pristine Wizard Trees Tea Time (Z x RS-11) at a spot in the trendier part of town, 10 minutes outside of the 800-year-old Old City. Green and purple bud that smells and tastes of Zkittlez candy, and gets you real high.
The spot has an air-conditioned second-floor lounge and a rooftop cafe where they don’t mind if you roll up. The budtender asks for my passport number while I smoke in the lounge, and I pause for a second, but then give it to him. I don’t get the sense that the government has the capacity or will to track down tourists for personal amounts of bud consumed in private. Tourism is like 26% of Thailand’s GDP. But we’ll see.
I pay $50 for the eighth, West Coast recreational store prices, but it is worth it. Back at my hotel in the Old City, the shop next door sells straight boo-boo pummeled by the heat and humidity. So I pay $5 a gram, or buy a tall Leo for $5, as an excuse to use the premises and roll up my head stash.
All week, I smoke with folks from all over the world at the quirky, chill spot, which also has a bar, coffeeshop, and Thai dress rental business.
Set just back from the bustling ring road around the Old City’s moat, I think about how thousands of shops with lounges have sprung up in Thailand in just three years. Meanwhile, six years into California’s legalization, we have what? Maybe 25 over-regulated struggling lounges, all concentrated in San Francisco and West Hollywood. It’s whack.
I ditch any herb for the AirAsia flight to Krabi en route to Koh Lanta island, there seems to be plenty everywhere anyway.
Vortex, Long Beach, Koh Lanta Island, July 25
OK, I haven’t seen weed this bad since high school in Southern California in the ’90s. The first shop near our Airbnb is not air-conditioned, and the buds are baking in the sun. They are brown, musty, vegetal, and cooked.
Up the road, the weed is better in an air-conditioned store. The best of the selection of about 12 jars is this throwback strain, Vortex, from TGA Subcool Seeds. It’s a mostly sativa cross of Apollo 13 x Space Queen that I grew maybe 8 years ago. And this is the real deal. What a blast from the past. Rest in Peace, breeder Subcool.
The terps are low, but my standards have gone down as well. It gets the job done on this very quiet, off-season island in the Andaman Sea.
Magic Marker, July 26
I do better further up the road the next day. A combination weed shop/money exchange has legit Seed Junky Magic Marker, Cookies Apples & Bananas, Exotic Genetix Money Maker, and Cypher Genetics Dopamine. How has Cypher Genetics’ latest made it into this remote island in the Andaman? Across the street, I score my first legit terpinolene strain, fresh Lemon Haze, plus some purple, citrusy Super Boof (aka Blockberry), re-named as Block Monster.
We get so high that a member of our group is convinced she threw her phone in the laundry machine. She did not.
Permanent Marker, July 28
Quiet little Old Lanta Town harbors the best weed of the trip so far at the best price. Legit Permanent Marker for $20 an eight from a cackling lady in a low-cut top who serves us out of the back room with A/C and a mini-fridge full of quarter-pounds. We think it’s indoor from Bangkok. She’s pretty defiant about the change in government policy.
Thailand’s growers have Permanent Marker dialed in. The growers don’t have brands, per se. But they are strong on candy-gas centered around Gelato. Whether it’s Super Runtz, or a Marker cross, Thailand keeps up. Since we are going by ferry and van, I hold onto my herb for the next leg to Koh Samui.
Blue Nerdz, Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, Aug. 4
Saturday is “family night” at the Muay Thai boxing ring in the center of a plaza surrounded by “girl bars.” I observe the scene from a weed store/lounge where the manager, “Peter,” says no to indoor smoking, by new order of the government.
“Smoke on the patio,” he says.
I’m leery about rolling up in public, but he insists. So we roll up some Da Funk (First Class Funk x White Runtz) and wait for fights to begin as a monsoon squall rolls through. The Da Funk is mid, but the medieval ambiance is surreal. Child boxers kick each other in the face while we chug cold Leo beers before they get too warm. Some mad British lads take selfies and carouse with the girls at the Sexy Sex Bar. The bar’s mistress solicits donations for her teen fighter from us. We are very far from puritanical America now.
My favorite spot of Lamai Beach down the street has Maine Trees’ new Blue Lobster, Blue Nerdz, Super Runtz, OZK, Zangbanger, and Zoza. Blue Nerdz proves to be the best of the shop. The weed is fine and strong, and I eat a whole pizza at the night market as monitor lizards and bats hunt in the neighboring lagoon.
Rainbow Zoap, Aug. 5
I find excellent Rainbow Zoap, Super Lemon Thai, Zangbanger, Cap Junky, and EmergencyC in a shop in the quaint, hip Fisherman’s Village on the north coast of Koh Samui. Muay Thai fight highlights play on YouTube on the flatscreen in this fishbowl of a shop/lounge as tourists walk by and gawk.
I get high enough to wonder if I’m about to be arrested when two Thai dudes in brown coveralls start idling out front of the shop. Nope. They’re just there to repair the neon signage. Across the entire trip, the clubs seem to be shrugging at the government’s re-medicalization. The clubs are never that crowded, but they’re never empty, either.
The shop owners complain business is slow due to the off-season and the saber-rattling out of Bangkok.
I settle into a routine that week of smoking on the second-floor balcony of my hotel room. Neither the neighbors nor the staff seem to care. Out of an abundance of caution, I chuck all herb and baggies before my AirAsia flight to Bangkok.
Alien Mintz, Bangkok Noi District, Aug. 10
The closest club to our apartment on Google Maps is set back from the highway, behind a coffee/beer/karaoke bar front room. I motion to go into the back and it looks like the kind of place you’d buy a mogwai. It’s dim, dusty, and cluttered with paraphernalia, mostly bongs and grinders spilling out of half-open boxes and bubble wrapping. In the back corner, three rows of jars require your phone flashlight to inspect. Laconic cats laze about, not exactly mean, but not friendly either.
The budtender quickly warms up and is proud of their Magic Marker, Alien Mintz, and many others. I’ve learned over this trip to ask for “what’s freshest, or new, or just came in?”
The Miracle Fruit (Super Lemon Haze x Mimova V6) turns out to be the best terpinolene strain of the trip. Great color and smell with much more character than a simple Jack. It’s a fine wake-and-bake strain that never gets too strong.
The Alien Mintz is a re-name of Cap Junky (Alien Cookies x Animal Mintz). It’s the finest-looking herb I’ve seen all trip—icy and pale green—with a muted, Bubba mint note, and super-potent effects. A half-joint is enough to be uncomfortably lit. It smells better than some Cap Junky I’ve seen in the US.
I bring Alien Mintz joints to other spots with worse weed but nicer rooftop lounges, buy the cheapest thing to access the lounge, and smoke my good stuff.
High as balls, we take terrifying $1 scooter taxi rides through Bangkok’s cyberpunk landscape of 11 million people.
I ditch all herb and paraphernalia for the flight back to the US, which stops in Hong Kong. I’m not about to get Britney Grinered by communist China.
And I will definitely be coming back to Thailand for a follow-up “work” trip.
Photo Gallery
Disclaimer: High Times does not endorse breaking any law, foreign or domestic. Be a respectful visitor, support local economies, and learn some of the language.
Photo by David Downs
