The cabinet has approved the Ministry of Public Health’s measures to allow patients with medical certificates and community doctors to produce, import, export, sell and possess medical marijuana, the government said on Tuesday.
Traisuree Traisanakul, the deputy spokeswoman for the government, said after the cabinet meeting that these measures will help patients and the development of medical marijuana in Thailand.
Under the new measures, any marijuana confiscated by the police will now be used for medical reasons.
The measures will be proposed to parliament, she added.
Anutin Charnvirakul, the public health minister, said before the meeting that patients, doctors and private hospitals will be able to produce marijuana and related products for medical purposes.
For other civilians, they may request a farming contract with public or private agencies and businesses that have gained a license to produce marijuana.
ADB loan
The government said on Tuesday they will be taking out a loan worth US$1.5 billion (48 billion baht) from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as part of its one trillion baht emergency loan to counteract the impact of the coronavirus.
Ratchada Thanadirek, the government deputy spokeswoman, said after the cabinet meeting that some parts of the emergency loan have already been made with domestic institutions.
“The Ministry of Finance viewed the amount of liquidity within the economy is going to be an important monetary source for Thai businesses that have been affected by the outbreak,” she said.
“They also observed that there is room to take out a loan in foreign currency so they saw this as an opportunity to secure such a loan with a low-interest rate in order to help stimulate the economy,” she added.
The loan with ADB will be officially announced by the end of August with an interest rate of 0.5 per cent per annum for 10 years for the first $500 million and five years for the remaining $1 billion.
Ratchada said the loan from ADB will push the public debt in foreign currency up to 2.46 per cent of the GDP which is less than 10 per cent of the fiscal security mark.
According to the Public Debt Management Office, Thailand’s public outstanding has amounted to 7.43 trillion baht or 44.76 per cent of the GDP which is worth 16.61 trillion baht as of June 30.
About 1.9 per cent of that figure is foreign currency debt which is estimated to be approximately 141 billion baht.
For disbursement, Ratchada said the government has approved the payment of 92.4 billion baht from the one trillion baht emergency loan budget for 167 projects in 57 provinces to stimulate the economy as of July 29.
Most of the projects will help improve the farmers’ productivity, help local products’ gain access to new markets and promote domestic tourism.