In order to allow private production and sale of marijuana for medical use, Thailand’s cabinet has given approval to the amendments to its Narcotics Act.

The amendments will be sent for legal review before going to the Thai parliament, Reuters reported.

Deputy government spokeswoman Traisuree Taisaranakul said the proposed amendments will allow patients, businesses and medical professionals to produce, export, import and sell the leaf.

To recall, Thailand was the first Southeast Asian nation to legalise marijuana in 2017 for medical use as well as research, but only the government was allowed to grow plants.

In order to encourage farmers to sell products online, Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives would sign a memorandum of understanding with Shopee, a popular e-commerce platform, expecting the product sales through the online platform to increase by nearly 30 per cent.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chalermchai Sreeon said that the COVID-19 outbreak had increased the popularity of online shopping.

“This is an opportunity to promote Thai farmers to sell products online and increase marketing channels in order to enable consumers to buy products with high quality and reasonable prices directly from farmers,” he said.

“We will organise training courses to enable farmers to sell agricultural products via online channels,” he added.

The minister stated that the government aims to train about 1,000 farmers this year. He explained that the cooperation with Lazada Thailand, a leading online shopping platform, to promote Thai farmers to sell products online since the beginning of this year, had been successful and had gained attention from several farmers.

He added that the ministry will inquire farmers who are not able to achieve the sales targets about the problems and obstacles they face.