Thai Fast Food Chain Introduces Pizza with Cannabis Leaves
One of Thailand’s largest fast food chains, The Pizza Company, has launched a new pizza topped with cannabis leaves, called Crazy Happy Pizza. This unique product is available at all of the company’s restaurants.
The Pizza is Made with Legal Cannabis
Chefs add finely chopped cannabis leaves to the cheese and sauce, then garnish the pizza with a fried cannabis leaf. Thai law only allows the use of industrial cannabis varieties with a THC concentration of no more than 0.2% in food products. As a result, Crazy Happy Pizza does not cause any intoxicating effects and doesn’t quite live up to its name.
The Pizza Company’s CEO, Panusak Suensatboon, stated that the pizza has a distinctive taste and aroma thanks to the flavonoids and terpenes found in cannabis. The company decided to create this original product to attract customer attention. For the same reason, they also released a pizza with durian—a pricey tropical fruit famous for its pungent smell.
Cannabis Pizza Isn’t Popular
According to Panusak, sales of the cannabis leaf pizza have been very poor. He attributes this to the fact that the dish cannot be advertised or sold to customers under 12 years old. However, the main obstacle to the commercial success of Crazy Happy Pizza is its high price. A 23-centimeter cannabis pizza costs 499 baht (about 1,093 rubles), while a standard pizza ranges from 260 to 350 baht (569–766 rubles).
Most restaurant customers buy the cannabis pizza just to take photos, post them on social media, and brag about trying a dish that was illegal until December 2020.
Cambodian Café Sells THC-Infused Pizza
In Phnom Penh, the capital of neighboring Cambodia, you can find “Happy Pizza” made with THC. Local cafés offer this product under names like Happy Herb’s Pizza or Happiness Pizza, with an average price of $7.50 (about 551 rubles). A journalist from Vice who ate an entire pizza described experiencing “unimaginable euphoria” and spent about an hour standing in the street, laughing at playing dogs.
When asked why chefs add THC oil to the pizza, one restaurant owner replied, “We make happy food. If you eat it, you’ll be happy too. Everyone wants happiness.”