Medical Cannabis
Honest notes from 900+ dispensary visits. Zero sponsored posts.
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If you have spent ten minutes researching cannabis in Thailand, you have seen it repeated until it stops meaning anything: PT33. PorThor 33. ภ.ท.33 if you are brave enough to read the government forms.
Here is the plain version. The PT33 is the cannabis prescription that makes your purchase legal, and getting one as a visitor in Bangkok is one of the simpler pieces of Thai bureaucracy you will ever deal with. Simpler than a visa extension, certainly.
I have watched hundreds of travellers go through it across 900+ dispensary visits. The nervous ones always say the same thing afterwards: that was it? So here is exactly what happens, what it costs, what it does not cover, and the mistakes I keep seeing.
The PT33 is Thailand's official prescription form for cannabis flower. Since June 2025, a licensed shop may only sell flower to someone holding a prescription from a Thai licensed practitioner, issued for a medical reason. No prescription, no legal sale.
It is not a medical cannabis card like the ones in California or Michigan. Thailand has no card system. It is a prescription for a specific treatment, written by a practitioner who has assessed you.
Seven types of Thai licensed practitioner can write a cannabis prescription:
For most visitors the route is a doctor or a Thai traditional medicine practitioner working at, or alongside, a licensed dispensary. You do not need to find a hospital.
One correction to something you will read everywhere: not every dispensary has a doctor on site. The current rules require every shop to have a government trained staff member on each shift, which is not the same thing as a practitioner who can prescribe. Some shops have a practitioner in house. Others work with a nearby clinic. Some expect you to arrive with a prescription already. Ask before you queue.
Your physical passport. Not a photocopy, not a photo on your phone. The prescription is tied to your identity.
An honest medical reason. This is a real consultation. The practitioner decides whether cannabis is appropriate for you. In the shops I have visited, the most common reasons are trouble sleeping, chronic pain, migraines and appetite problems, and health officials have pointed to conditions like insomnia, chronic pain and migraine as typical uses. The practitioner has the final say. I go deeper into what a doctor can actually prescribe for in a separate post.
Any supporting paperwork you have. Prescriptions from home, a diagnosis letter, a list of your current medications. Not required, but it makes the conversation easier and safer.
Proof that you are 20 or older. Not 18, not 21. Twenty. Shops are also barred from selling to anyone pregnant or breastfeeding.
Step one: choose the right shop. Pick a licensed dispensary that offers consultations. Check the coloured licence sticker at the door, or look the shop up on the ThaiCannaMapped Dispensary Register before you go.
Step two: ask for a PT33 consultation. Staff will take your passport details and introduce you to the practitioner.
Step three: the consultation. Expect questions about your health, your medications, any allergies and what you hope cannabis will help with. In my experience it takes 15 to 30 minutes. Be straight with them. The goal is to find out whether cannabis suits you, not to catch you out.
Step four: the prescription is issued. It states the product, the quantity and the treatment period. The period cannot exceed 30 days, and licensed shops work to a 30 gram limit across that period.
Step five: you buy what was prescribed. The shop keeps a record. You keep your copy.
There is no official price for a PT33 consultation, so shops set their own. Across the shops I have visited, expect somewhere between a few hundred and a couple of thousand baht for the consultation, with the cannabis charged separately. A few shops fold the consultation fee into your first purchase. If a price sounds wildly out of line with that range, walk to the next shop.
The 30 day ceiling is real. A prescription can cover up to 30 days of treatment, no longer.
The working limit is 30 grams. The regulation itself only sets the 30 day ceiling, but across licensed shops the standard you will meet is up to 30 grams over those 30 days. Expect your prescription to sit at or under that.
Treat each prescription as single use. Legal guidance on the current rules describes prescriptions as non refillable. If you need more, you go back for a new consultation.
You will find services offering a PT33 over a video call or a chat app. Be careful. The current rules make no clear provision for remote cannabis prescriptions, and legal advisers have flagged chat based consultations as non compliant. Health officials have talked about building a telemedicine system, but until it exists, an in person consultation at a licensed shop or clinic is the safe route.
It does not let you smoke in public. Your prescription covers buying and possessing. It does not override the public nuisance rules. See where you can actually smoke in Bangkok.
It does not let you smoke inside the shop. Shops can lose their licence for allowing it.
It does not cover strong extracts. Products above 0.2% THC fall under narcotics law. More on flower, edibles and vapes.
It does not leave the country. Inside Thailand, your PT33 and receipt cover legally bought flower, including on domestic flights. At an international departure it means nothing. Do not take weed home from Thailand.
Leaving the passport at the hotel. A driving licence will not do.
Walking into a shop that cannot prescribe. Plenty of licensed shops sell but do not consult. Ask at the door.
Treating it as a formality. The practitioner can say no. Rarely, but they can.
Throwing the prescription away. Carry it whenever you carry cannabis. It is your proof that the purchase was legal.
Leaving it to the last night. Sort it out on day one or two, when your judgement is sharp and the best staff are on shift.
When anyone could sell anything, nobody asked a single question before handing a first timer the strongest thing on the shelf. The prescription forced shops to either take health seriously or close. The ones that stayed are the ones with real staff and real knowledge. Fifteen minutes of friction is what separates a pharmacy from a vending machine, and after watching enough bad first experiences, I will take the friction.
I share which shops run the consultation well on Instagram, the ones where it feels like a conversation rather than a speed bump. The deeper discussions about how the prescription system is shaping the industry happen inside Reefers Club. And explaining the PT33 clearly, without crossing the advertising ban, is a core part of the content work I do with dispensaries.
The PT33 is not a barrier. It is a filter. What it filters out is exactly the stuff you did not want anyway.
Written by someone who has sat through more PT33 consultations than most doctors and still thinks the process works.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or legal advice. PT33 requirements may change. Always verify current regulations through official Thai sources. Adults 20+ only.
