Cannabis in Koh Samui: What the Law Actually Says in 2026

If you search for this, you will find articles telling you that recreational cannabis is legal in Thailand for anyone over twenty. You will find others saying you can walk into a shop and buy flower with no paperwork at all.

Both are wrong. Some of them were true once, which is how the confusion started, and some are still being published today by businesses that should know better.

We are a licensed dispensary in Koh Samui and we work inside these rules every day. Here is the actual position.

The short version

Cannabis flower in Thailand is a controlled herb. Buying it legally requires a prescription, issued in person by a certified practitioner, after a genuine medical assessment. There is no recreational category. Being over twenty is a requirement, not a qualification.

What changed, and when

Thailand decriminalised cannabis in June 2022, and for roughly three years the market operated with very little regulation. That is the period most of the outdated articles are describing.

That ended in June 2025. A Ministry of Public Health notification reclassified cannabis flower as a controlled herb under the Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine Knowledge Act, and it took effect on 26 June 2025. From that date, every legal sale of flower has required a prescription.

The rules have been tightened twice since. In March 2026 a regulation covering extracts above 0.2 percent THC was published, and in April 2026 a further regulation added premises, storage, staffing and odour-control requirements for shops licensed to sell flower.

The effect has been dramatic. Of roughly 18,000 cannabis businesses operating before the change, most did not survive it. Of the licences that came up for renewal in 2025, only about fifteen percent were renewed. Around seven thousand shops closed.

If a shop is still open and still selling flower legally in 2026, it has been through that filter.

The prescription

The document is called a PT33, written in Thai as ภ.ท.33 and sometimes transliterated as Por Thor 33.

It is issued by a practitioner, not by a shop assistant, and not by a website. Thailand recognises seven categories of practitioner who can issue one. The assessment is a real consultation about your health history and what you are actually seeking to treat.

A few things follow from that.

It can be declined. A practitioner who decides cannabis is not appropriate for you will say so. This is a medical decision and it is meant to be one.

There is a published list of qualifying conditions. The Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine named fifteen when the rules changed: chronic pain, spasms, cramps, joint pain, muscle stiffness, cancer, nausea and vomiting, Parkinson's disease, seizures, asthma, insomnia, loss of appetite, general anxiety, Alzheimer's disease and depression. The prescription form also carries a field a practitioner can complete themselves, so the list is a strong guide rather than an absolute boundary.

It is valid for up to thirty days, and it is tied to the dispensary that issued it.

There is a monthly supply limit, reported as thirty grams.

Your foreign card does not transfer. A medical cannabis card from Canada, Germany, Thailand's neighbours or anywhere else has no standing here. Neither does a prescription from a doctor at home. This catches people out constantly.

Can visitors get one?

Yes. There is no requirement to be Thai or resident. You need to be twenty or over, you need your passport, and you need to attend in person.

Expect the consultation to take around half an hour and to carry a fee. It is a medical appointment, not a formality at the till.

What you should not expect is a guaranteed outcome. If you arrive treating it as a box to tick, and the practitioner disagrees, that is the end of it.

Where you can and cannot consume

This is where most visitors go wrong, and it is the part with the sharpest penalties.

Public consumption is illegal. Cannabis smoke and odour were declared a public nuisance under the Public Health Act in 2022, and that has not changed. The beach is public. The street is public. Your hotel balcony is very often treated as public by the hotel.

The penalty is a fine of up to twenty-five thousand baht, imprisonment of up to three months, or both.

Private consumption is legal. And on-site consumption requires a separate medical-clinic licence, not an add-on to the ordinary retail one. Most dispensaries do not have it. If somewhere tells you it is fine to consume on their premises, it is worth understanding whether that is a licence or an opinion.

Taking it out of the country

You cannot. There is no permit, no exemption, and no version of this that works.

This includes CBD oils and anything bought legally in Thailand with a valid prescription. The prescription has no standing at a foreign border, and several countries you might transit through treat possession extremely seriously.

Every dispensary in Thailand tells customers this. It is worth repeating because the consequences are severe and entirely avoidable.

What to bring, if you are coming to a dispensary

Your passport. Not a photo of it, not a driving licence, the physical document. Age and identity are checked at the door and again at the consultation.

Time. Half an hour for the consultation, and more if the practitioner is with someone else.

An honest account of your health. The assessment is only useful if it is accurate, and a practitioner making a decision on bad information is not doing you a favour.

Why so much of what you read is wrong

Three reasons.

The law genuinely changed, and articles written in 2023 and 2024 described a real situation that no longer exists. Search engines do not sort by accuracy.

Some businesses have not updated their marketing, and a smaller number have chosen not to, because the outdated version is more appealing.

And the Thai regulatory picture is still moving. There is draft legislation pending that would put cannabis on a statutory footing rather than a ministerial one, and further regulations have arrived twice already in 2026.

We update this page when the position changes. If you are reading it long after the date at the top, check the date.

Where we fit

Chillom is a licensed medical cannabis dispensary in Bangrak, Koh Samui, with a cafe and lounge attached. We are open from ten in the morning until two in the morning, every day.

Our practitioner works on-site, so the consultation and the prescription happen in the same visit rather than sending you to a clinic across the island first.

If you have a question this page does not answer, message us on LINE and we will answer it plainly, including when the answer is no.

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This guide is general information about Thai law and is not medical or legal advice. Regulations are changing frequently. Verify the current position before making decisions.