Bangkok’s Khao San Road has been the heady gateway to Southeast Asia for generations of backpackers. Flip-flopped arrivals are met with a sensory cacophony: blistering sunshine, the pungent waft of red chili hitting smoldering woks, and, for the more reckless, a smorgasbord of mind-tweaking drink and drugs procured down back allies and dimly lit bars. Saccharine marijuana smoke was never far away, nor were tales of hapless foreigners hauled off to the city’s infamously fetid jail, dubbed the “Bangkok Hilton,” for smoking a mere joint.
But times are changing on the Khao San Road. On June 9, Thailand became the first country in Asia—and only the third in the world, after Canada and Uruguay—to decriminalize cannabis nationwide. (In the U.S., cannabis is federally prohibited but can be consumed recreationally in 19 states and the District of Columbia.) Today, tourists strolling the Thai capital have their pick of dozens of shops and stalls emblazoned with neon marijuana leaves selling glistening buds of white widow, Hindu kush, and lemon skunk.
Every morning, hawkers stack bricks of weed and hashish on foldable metal tables. Glass jars akin to a 1930s candy shop overflow with gummies laced with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical that gives cannabis its trademark “high.” Even 7-Eleven sells cannabis-infused drinks and beauty products, while restaurants offer soups, curries, and pizzas spiked with ganja leaves. Ready-rolled joints cost 100 baht ($2.80), or two for 180 baht ($5). Meanwhile, police stand idly by or even line up to pick up a baggie of their own.
