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The marijuana leaf has become a familiar sight in the streets of Bangkok

By Jonathan Head

South East Asia correspondent

A new symbol has appeared in the kaleidoscopic jumble of neon signs that light up Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok's most international street. The sudden ubiquity of the five-pointed marijuana leaf, in lurid green, announces the spectacular boom there has been in weed-related businesses in Thailand since cannabis was decriminalised last June.

Walk two kilometres east of the BBC office in Bangkok, and you pass more than 40 dispensaries, selling potent marijuana flower buds and all the paraphernalia needed to smoke them.

Travel in the opposite direction, to the famous backpacker hangout of Khao San Road, and there is an entire marijuana-themed shopping mall, Plantopia, its shops half-hidden behind the haze of smoke created by customers trying out the product. The website Weed in Thailand lists more than 4,000 businesses across the country selling cannabis and its derivatives.

And this is Thailand, where until last June you could be jailed for five years just for possessing marijuana, up to 15 years for producing it; where other drug offences get the death penalty. The pace of change has been breathtaking.