Section 236: Adulterating food or drugs
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดปลอมปนอาหาร ยาหรือเครื่องอุปโภคบริโภคอื่นใด เพื่อบุคคลอื่นเสพย์หรือใช้ และการปลอมปนนั้นน่าจะเป็นเหตุให้เกิดอันตรายแก่สุขภาพ หรือจำหน่าย หรือเสนอขาย สิ่งเช่นว่านั้นเพื่อบุคคลเสพย์หรือใช้ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินสามปี หรือปรับไม่เกินหกหมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๔ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever adulterates food, drugs or any other article of consumption or use, for another person to consume or use, where the adulteration is likely to cause danger to health, or sells or offers for sale any such thing for a person to consume or use, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years, or a fine not exceeding sixty thousand baht, or both.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Three elements must be present: adulteration of food, drugs, or other consumer goods, a purpose of sale, and that the adulteration is likely to be dangerous to health. The health danger element is essential, and a charge that fails to allege it is defective, as the Supreme Court has confirmed. The section sits among the public danger offences and often overlaps with specialised statutes such as the Food Act and the Drug Act, which may carry their own penalties for the same conduct. Section 238 increases the penalty where the adulteration causes death, and Section 239 covers negligent commission.
Why this matters in practice
For a complaint to stand, it must plead facts showing the adulteration was likely to endanger health, not merely that goods were adulterated. Exposure is up to three years, or a 60,000 baht fine, and the same facts may also be charged under food, drug, or product standards legislation. A frequent defence is that the additive or substitution posed no realistic health risk. See our overview of corporate criminal liability in Thailand.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
-
Supreme Court Judgment No. 7843/2543 (2000)
A charge under Section 236 must allege that the adulteration was likely to be dangerous to health; a complaint that omits this fact does not make out the offence.
The prosecution charged the defendant with adulterating engine oil, a consumer article, for sale under Section 236. The Court noted that an offence under Section 236 requires facts showing the adulteration was likely to endanger health, but the complaint did not allege those facts, so it did not make out the offence.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 6 Supreme Court decisions (1965 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 4925/2538 (1995)
- Decision 2143/2536 (1993)
- Decision 7843/2543 (2000)
- Decision 5796/2567 (2024)
- Decision 1387/2558 (2015)
- Decision 34/2508 (1965)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 83 3
- Section 90 3
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
What must be proven under Section 236?
That the accused adulterated food, drugs, or consumer goods for sale, and that the adulteration was likely to endanger health. Without the health-risk element, the charge fails.
Can adulterating goods be charged under other laws too?
Yes. The same conduct is often prosecuted under the Food Act, the Drug Act, or industrial product standards law, which can carry separate penalties from Section 236.
Is Section 236 limited to food?
No. It covers food, drugs, and any other article of consumption, so adulterated consumables sold to the public can fall within it.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 236 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 236. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-236/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 236 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-236/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-236/"><p>Whoever adulterates food, drugs or any other article of consumption or use, for another person to consume or use, where the adulteration is likely to cause danger to health, or sells or offers for sale any such thing for a person to consume or use,…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 236 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-236/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.