Amsterdam has dominated cannabis tourism for 40 years, but now it’s stepping back from this multibillion-dollar industry, creating opportunities for emerging marijuana destinations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. New rules in the Dutch city’s central tourist area limit alcohol sales, require bars to close earlier, and impose a €100 ($107) fine for public marijuana smoking.
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema has told media that marijuana tourism is a blight on the city, fostering crime and public disorder, and has proposed banning foreigners from its cannabis cafés. Since the Netherlands decriminalized cannabis in 1976, it’s been a bucket-list destination for weed enthusiasts.
Tourism experts say Amsterdam’s new policies could alter the global cannabis tourism industry, recently estimated by Forbes to be worth $17 billion annually. Thailand, South Africa, Uruguay, Jamaica, Malta, Mexico, Canada, and the United States have all loosened their cannabis laws, which could increasingly attract tourists, experts predict. Germany may also enter this equation, as it may soon legalize cannabis.
Leading that pack of potential Amsterdam successors is Thailand. Long renowned for strict drug laws, the Asian nation legalized cannabis use last year and now has thousands of dispensaries. It is swiftly becoming a major cannabis destination, says Michael O’Regan, tourism lecturer at Scotland’s Caledonian University.
“Thailand is a freewheeling environment at the moment, with very little restriction on consumption by tourists,” says O’Regan, an expert in marijuana tourism. “The country is attracting cannabis tourists across the Asian region and may increasingly attract Europeans.”
Visitors are the main customers of Thailand’s cannabis stores, says Mendel Menachem, spokesperson for High Thailand, a website cataloguing these dispensaries. Popular Thai destinations Bangkok, Phuket, Koh Samui, and Chiang Mai each have many shops where tourists can freely buy the drug.
More than one million Thai residents have registered to grow cannabis legally, says Pipatpong Fakfare, assistant professor of tourism at Bangkok University. But he warns that Thailand’s cannabis laws are complicated. Legal cannabis products there cannot contain more than 0.2 percent THC.
That’s a very low level for recreational marijuana. California dispensaries sell cannabis with 35 percent THC. “I think we need a firm guideline and regulation on where and how cannabis should be sold or distributed here before Thailand could become a cannabis capital,” says Fakfare.
(How did Thailand’s ‘Egg Boy’ statue become a tourism phenomenon?)
By comparison, Germany is unlikely to embrace cannabis tourism if it legalizes the drug, says Julius Arnegger from the German
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