Just like every millennial in Bangkok this year, I got into the weed business. But, instead of opening a dispensary or weed truck, I got involved with a small local farm in Korat, growing chemical-free, organic weed. Despite how many dispensaries there are and how easy it is to buy weed in Bangkok right now, I’ve actually never bought any. 

 

The oversaturated weed culture in Bangkok right now comes with a certain kind of customer: young, super excited, and loud. I like to smoke in the comfort of my own home and read or go to bed like a true old person. I smoke to relax, not party, as Bangkok's weed scene currently offers. We are just not the same.

 

Weed has always been my go-to and I never want to take anything whipped up in a lab—only the clean, natural stuff for me. No offense nor judgment for those who enjoy hard chemical drugs, this is just a personal preference. At most dispensaries, I don’t know how the buds were grown, or how clean they are, or that I’d trust it enough in my lungs.

 

 

A friend of mine, Amy, who I’ve known for 10 years has been providing me and a close group of friends with her flowers ever since she started growing—by which of course I mean only since it has been legal *coughs*. 

 

Her weed plants are grown under controlled temperature and light, using only natural fertilizers and clean soil. She also uses the flush watering technique, a process of soaking the soil multiple times to remove excess minerals and salt build-up, preserving the quality of the soil while protecting the roots and keeping the plants happy and clean. 

 

It is Amy’s family-run farm with which I’ve chosen to invest. On the same grounds, she also grows fruit and produce like strawberries, mango, lemon, and butternut squash—you name it. With healthy insects flying around and with land far from the city, the air is clean and the ecosystem fertile.

 

 

As a deputy editor with BK Magazine, another of my passions is wine, but more so how grapes are grown, especially in some wineries where they do biodynamic farming (plants grown in “living soil”). I just find it fascinating. I’m also into gardening myself where I grow bananas, mulberries, orchids, and some vegetables on my balcony right in the center of Sukhumvit.

 

Just like the increasingly ingredient-focused food scene in Thailand, consumers want to know about Chiang Mai tomatoes and Sakon Nakhon beef and how the fish were ethically caught on Koh Lanta. Given time, people will start to care about where their weed comes from and in the future, the “farm-to-table” concept won’t just apply to food and restaurants. Now, the scene is still quite young and everyone is just excited by the novelty. 

 

If you care about the ingredients in your food or the stories behind each wine bottle or cocktail, why wouldn’t you care about how your weed plants are treated?