Abstract
Cannabis is traditional plant that contains psychoactive substances, which have several risks and benefits. By law many countries (including Thailand) probihited the use of cannabis, and included it in the narcotic or addictive substance list. Between 2015 and 2016, there were massive campaigns from both public and private agencies urging an amendment of the Narcotics Act B.E. 2522 (1979) to withdraw cannabis from the narcotic drug list. This report therefore sought to review the current situation regarding the use of cannabis for medical purposes in various aspects, as well as cannabis legalisation from foreign experience (using Netherlands, United States, and Uruguay as case studies). The main data collection technique is literature review on electronic databases, namely, Medline. The findings show that most studies on cannabis were limited to laboratory work. Though there were some clinical trials on humans, the majority of them still had a small number of participants comparing clinical effects of cannabis with placebo. Concerning foreign experiences, the scope of cannabis medicalisation varies substantially; from extracting medical substances in cannabis to treat patients that did not respond to conventional treatments, to using cannabis for recreational activities. Some countries implemented decriminalisation measures. The openness of cannabis policies in many countries had some similar approaches: (1) the revision of cannabis related laws was gradually made over time, and (2) there were several measures implemented in parallel to prevent cannabis use in the way that deviates from original policy intentions. If the Thai government aims to implement policies vis-à-vis the utilisation of cannabis, it is imperative to distinguish medicalisation issue from legalisation issue to avoid misperceptions in the society. The Thai government should assess its capacity in regulating the use of cannabis before introducing cannabis-medicalisation/legalisation policies.
