I Went to Nudkinpuk Flower Competition 2026 — Thailand’s Cannabis Growers Gather in Bangkok

The Nudkinpuk Flower Competition 2026 ran June 13 to 14 at ChangChui Creative Park in Bangkok, bringing together growers, farms, and cannabis brands from across Thailand. Unlike a standard trade show or sales event, the focus here is squarely on flower quality, aroma, and cultivation technique.

The event ran two days. I attended day two, and while I didn’t take part in the flower competition or any of the hands-on activities, I came away with enough of a sense of the event as a whole to write it up properly while it’s still fresh.

A friend of the owner of The Duckies Dispensary arranged the ride to the venue, and it turned out to be a rideshare service built specifically for smoking en route. We lit up on the way over.

Heavy rain hit partway through the ride, but being in a car meant it wasn’t a problem. I normally get around by motorbike to save money, which during rainy season usually means getting soaked. This time I got to smoke comfortably under a roof instead. Services like this only exist because medical cannabis is legal in Thailand, and it’s a clear sign of how quickly this kind of culture and business is settling into daily life here.

Nudkinpuk took place at ChangChui Creative Park, on the western side of Bangkok. It’s one of the city’s best-known culture spots, built around a massive decommissioned airplane as its centerpiece, with art, vintage clothing, food stalls, and a flea market all coexisting on the same grounds. Creatives and artists already gravitate here, which makes it a natural fit for cannabis culture and a genuinely good location for Nudkinpuk.

That said, it’s a fair distance from the city center and not the easiest to get to, and this year’s event was noticeably more compact than the previous edition. Even so, the venue drew committed growers and enthusiasts, and it reinforced how tight Thailand’s cannabis community actually is.

The Duckies Dispensary, who I’d come with, had a new t-shirt ready, and I got one. The back carries a message in Thai that translates to “a sustainable, balanced, healthy way of living,” and I was sold on it immediately. It’s sold in-store too, and makes a solid souvenir for anyone into cannabis culture.

Back to the event itself: since we arrived in the early evening, the crowd was still thin, though the usual familiar faces were already there. I walked the venue introducing friends to each other. The space itself was small enough that we covered it in about 30 minutes, faster than expected, so I spent the extra time hearing about cannabis culture back home from a few European friends in the scene.

About two hours after arriving, as the sun went down, the crowd started building. While smoking with my European friends using a handmade bamboo pipe I’d brought, a Taiwanese friend joined us from behind. Since my first pass through the venue had been a quick once-over, we decided to make a proper round of the booths together.

One of my friends got interested in a booth selling bong-shaped keychains made from yarn. Looking closely, every piece was handmade, with its own color and shape. Priced at 490 THB, the range went from small pieces to ones with real presence on a keychain. Mass production isn’t the point here. Seeing handmade items with real individual character is part of what makes Nudkinpuk distinctive.

Next was the DUNK booth, selling THC-infused popcorn, mango smoothies, and a few other unusual items that had a lot of people stopping to look. My friend picked up a couple of things that caught his eye. Flower isn’t the only way cannabis culture shows up here, and that range is one of the things that makes Thai cannabis events feel different.

There was also a booth from a well-known Thai female cannabis influencer selling her own handmade items. Thai enthusiasts naturally gathered around it, and I ran into several Thai friends I hadn’t seen in a while. At some point I was spending more time catching up with people than actually visiting booths, which I didn’t mind at all.

Nudkinpuk had a separate ticketed area inside the venue for the competition and live events.

Entry was 300 THB, covering the flower competition exhibits and stage programming. As the evening went on, more and more people bought tickets to get in, and the ticketed section had real energy by that point. The rest of the venue was free to walk through, with the paid area set aside for people who wanted the more focused, core experience.

A friend was kind enough to pass me a guest credential, which got me into the ticketed area.

I’d heard the event was smaller than the previous year, so I went in expecting a thin crowd. That assumption didn’t survive contact with the room. It was packed: the area around the stage and the exhibitor booths was genuinely busy, the air was thick with aroma and smoke, and the energy of Thailand’s cannabis community was something you could feel physically.

A few booths were set up inside, including one from OG KRATOM, run by someone I know. OG KRATOM works with high-quality kratom sourced from southern Thailand, and builds its presence around kratom tea and related products that highlight Thailand’s traditional plant culture.

What stood out at the OG KRATOM booth was a kratom-infused snus. Snus is an oral nicotine product most associated with Nordic countries, and in recent years it’s started showing up with a wider range of flavors and added ingredients. The version on display combined kratom, a plant long used in southern Thailand, with nicotine, and it drew a lot of interest from international attendees in particular.

While talking with people I knew, someone tapped me from behind. I turned around and a friend was standing there holding a magazine: NOWORNEVER MAGAZINE.

It’s an independent magazine focused on Thai cannabis culture, covering the people behind it: growers, brand owners, and artists. The person who makes it happens to be a friend of mine, and she’d been looking for the latest issue.

I’d been wanting to get my hands on this issue for a specific reason. I’d heard from a friend that the bamboo smoking accessories from my own project, Organic Gangsta, had been featured in it, but I hadn’t been able to track down a physical copy and had mostly given up looking.

Finally holding it at the venue, I opened it up and there it was: my work, in print. There’s something different about seeing your own work documented on paper rather than on social media or a website. Finding the bamboo accessories I make included in a magazine that’s actively documenting Thai cannabis culture meant a lot.

Having covered most of the cannabis-focused areas, I left the event space and wandered the rest of the park. The area around the giant airplane monument at the center was lined with restaurants, vintage clothing shops, and art installations, with its own kind of energy separate from the event itself.

While browsing, I came across a t-shirt that genuinely made me do a double take. Across the chest: “I AM FROM ศรีธัญญา (Sri Thanya).” Sri Thanya is the name of a well-known psychiatric hospital in Thailand, so the effect is roughly the same as a shirt reading “I’m from the psych ward” would land elsewhere: dark humor, worn proudly. Jokes like this turning into actual merchandise is very much part of Thai culture.

Walking through more of the vintage shops, I spotted someone with a bamboo bong tucked into the back of their jeans. No idea who they were, but the message came through clearly enough.

Having seen most of the booths, I split off from my friends and was smoking alone when I ran into the manager of Cookies, completely by chance. We’ve known each other for over two years, and hadn’t had much chance to catch up recently, so the conversation ran long. At some point I noticed a bamboo filter in his bag, one of my early prototypes, and he was still using it carefully after all this time. That meant a lot, so I gave him one of my newer filters, and he gave me some of his favorite flower in return.

I smoked it once I got home, and it lived up to expectations: genuinely excellent cannabis, which made sense given whose collection it came from.

I’d only planned a short walk around the park, but by the time I checked, it was nearly 11 PM. My energy was genuinely done by that point. Plenty of joints had been passed my way over the course of the night, and I was thoroughly smoked out. All I wanted was a bed, so I headed home on the motorbike ahead of everyone else.

This was my second time at Nudkinpuk, and compared to other events, the turnout from Thai cannabis enthusiasts specifically is higher. If you want a genuine read on Thai cannabis culture, it’s a strong event to attend.

Cannabis events in Thailand have become less frequent than they used to be, but Nudkinpuk continues to run on a regular schedule, and it has its own appeal as a community event where growers, enthusiasts, and brand owners can connect naturally, beyond just the competition itself.

If your trip to Thailand happens to line up with the dates, it’s worth making time for.

Note: This article is based on content originally published on the Japanese edition of OG Times .