From the valleys of the Hindu Kush to the mountains of northern India and the remote regions of ancient China, Asia has been the cradle of cannabis for millennia.
And while the history of the plant began in Asia, in most of the continent, legalization remains far from the horizon, and draconian sentences are regularly handed down, even for routine offenses.
But in countries like Thailand, Israel and Lebanon, some governments are seeing the benefits of legalization and could help usher in an era of reform on a continent that remains far behind when it comes to cannabis reform.
A Lebanese-Chinese partnership hopes to give new momentum to the medical cannabis sector, which remains dormant in the country. After announcing a partnership in the...
Thailand continues to shape its cannabis regulations, ultimately aiming for a strictly regulated medical cannabis model. The Department of Traditional Medicine...
Taiwan could soon revoke the driving licenses of people convicted of using cannabis abroad, even if such use was legal in the country....
As of June 1, 2026, Japan has officially banned CBN (cannabinol), a cannabinoid derived from Cannabis that was previously sold legally throughout...
The RCK company, based in the Israeli kibbutz of Rouhama in the western Negev, claims to have developed a hybrid seed technology that can increase...
Pakistan speeds up implementation of its regulatory framework for medical cannabis and industrial hemp, as the Cannabis Control and Regulatory...
A special committee of the Israeli Ministry of Health recommends phasing out the use and sale of medical cannabis for smoking in Israel within three...
Singapore has carried out the execution of Omar Yacob Bamadhaj, a 46-year-old Singaporean national convicted of importing over a kilogram of cannabis, despite calls...
For the first time in over 50 years, the Indian government has granted public funding to a cannabis research project. The...
Japan is once again tightening its regulatory framework for cannabis-derived compounds. This time, the target is cannabinol (CBN), a cannabinoid less...
After more than twenty-one months in detention and with the threat of the death penalty hanging over his head, Tom Félix, a 34-year-old French national,...
Thailand's Minister of Public Health, Pattana Promphat, confirmed this week that more than 7,000 cannabis stores have closed in...
Far from LED-saturated culture halls and ultra-selective genetics, this time the Strain Hunters head deep into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, to the...
The United Arab Emirates has issued a federal decree regulating the industrial and medical uses of hemp, officially creating a new, tightly controlled economic sector....
For seven months, American athlete Jarred Shaw remained in the Indonesian prison system, wondering if a packet of THC gummies sent from Thailand...
In a country that is still very cautious about the use of cannabis, research teams in South Korea are stepping up their work on active compounds...
Lebanon has officially begun implementing its framework for the legalization of medical cannabis, a project long delayed since its adoption by the...
Jarred Shaw, an American basketball player suffering from Crohn's disease, has been in jail for six months in a Jakarta prison after being arrested...
On August 13, 2025, Sri Lanka officially granted seven foreign investors permission to legally cultivate cannabis for export. The authorization was...
Kazakhstan's industrial hemp sector is attracting interest. In early September, the Kazakh government began negotiations with Chinese pharmaceutical giant Cheng Tian...
