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A luxury Thai resort is offering Asia’s first cannabis retreat

The resort, on the island of Samui, has partnered with ‘global cannabis brand’ Kanha to provide marijuana-based therapies
  • The announcement comes as Thailand looks set to crackdown on recreational cannabis, while still permitting its medicinal use

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PUBLISHED

ARTICLE BY

PUBLISHED

A resort on a Thai island has announced a new collaboration with so-called “global cannabis brand” Kanha to offer weed-enhanced treatments to its guests.

Doctors and chemists have developed “an array of bespoke therapies” for the resort, known as the Beach Samui, according to a press release by Kanha’s parent company, the Californian marijuana producer Sunderstorm. The treatments, which involve edible cannabis products sold under the Kanha label, claim to ensure “the highest standards of safety and efficacy” and purport to be part of “a continued commitment to the therapeutic potential of cannabis in a safe, controlled environment.”

The marijuana-based treatments now on offer at the Beach Samui include what the press release describes as “immersive bathing rituals, sound healing, infused culinary experiences, guided meditation, vibrational therapies, IV infusions, breathwork, movement, fitness and in-depth cannabinoid education sessions.” 

[See more: The Thai government is doubling down on its plan to ban recreational cannabis]

To ensure guests don’t bite off more than they can chew, pharmacists are on site to ensure that the treatments align with the “wellness goals, preferences and tolerance levels” of participants.

The resort’s cannabis programme comes amid a flip-flopping attitude to the drug on the part of the Thai authorities. Thailand decriminalised the plant for medicinal use in 2018 and then recreational use in 2022, but authorities are now set to institute harsh new regulations on the recreational side of this billion-dollar industry by the end of 2024. Under the new law, Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew told Reuters in February, “cannabis will be a controlled plant.”

Illegal shops will be shut down, home-grown cannabis discouraged, and sharp fines or  even jail terms imposed on those who use cannabis recreationally, participate in marketing it in any way, farm without a licence or trade in the substance without a permit.