Why Does the 9 Billion Dollar Thai Cannabis Forecast Not Hold?

The multi-billion-dollar Thai cannabis forecasts, including the widely cited nine-figure projections, do not hold because they were built by extrapolating boom-era growth and never corrected for the 2025 recriminalization. They compound assumptions that reality has already invalidated. A forecast that projects continued rapid growth from a market that has since contracted is not a forecast; it is a straight line drawn through a turning point.

How the number was built

These forecasts typically took the explosive early growth of the open market and applied a growth rate forward over several years. That method works only if the underlying conditions persist. In Thailand, they did not: the legal basis of the market changed in June 2025, and the open recreational model that drove the growth ended.

The compounding error

The deeper problem is compounding. Once a forecast assumes continued high growth from an inflated base, every year forward multiplies the error. A model that missed the contraction does not just start too high; it grows the mistake annually. That is how you arrive at figures detached from what the market can actually support.

What a defensible number looks like

A credible figure starts from the market as it is now, accounts for the contraction and the consolidation, and builds up from observable reality rather than projecting a dead trend. It is smaller than the headline forecasts and more useful, because it is anchored to what exists. The specific number is in our report.