On 9 June 2022, the day Thailand legalised cannabis cultivation and its use in food and drink, shoppers queued at outlets in Bangkok selling cannabis products. Reuters interviewed a 24-year-old man near the front of one line who had been waiting since the previous evening to make his first legal marijuana purchase. The front of the queue was not merely the shortest route to a new product; it was a place to wait across the moment when the law changed.
Thailand had long been known for strict drug laws, yet it became the first country in Asia to permit cultivation and cannabis use in food and beverages. Public smoking could still breach public-health rules. Those in line were therefore not entering a world without restrictions, but the first day of a newly drawn boundary between legal and illegal conduct.
In an ordinary product launch, the novelty sits inside the package. Here, the most novel thing was the legal framework around the purchase. Waiting overnight made the transition visible: an item long prohibited could now be sold openly across a shop counter.