Introduction:
With the increasing concerns of the implications of tobacco consumption on health, the national and international governments have orchestrated efforts to control tobacco consumption. Thailand has been praised for its tough promotion of comprehensive measures through tobacco control policies, but these policies are largely focused on demand side. Meanwhile, the extent to which these TCPs have implications for tobacco farmers have not yet fully been recognized.

Objectives:
This paper examines the political economy of tobacco control in Thailand, and assesses the extent to which the tobacco control policies are implicated on farmers.

Methods:
Data for the analysis was obtained through qualitative methods, interviewed of 12 local authorities and focus groups of 50 tobacco farmers in 4 provinces, i.e. Prae, Petchabun, Roi-et, and Nongkai.

Results:
This paper argues that the tobacco state enterprise that evolved before the turning of 1960s and developed further, especially under the 1965 Tobacco Act, play a significant role in protecting farmers from adverse conditions, either driven by tobacco control policies or the world market. Although the new Tobacco Control Act issued in 2018 has made a number of change, but most are directed to demand side (sale and smokers). Farmers will continue to enjoy the protection, the subsidies that made available by Tobacco Authority of Thailand, and these subsidies earn farmers a better off position in compared with their counterparts that subsidies are barely and unreliable.

Conclusion(s):
The alternative livelihoods that tobacco farmers can accept would be only to change to more lucrative crops, and reliable markets, especially in a form of contract farming or in a similar terms that they received from Tobacco Authority of Thailand.