Too many slick sellers take the bloom off medicinal cannabis

April 16, 2026 — 5:00am

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Australia’s medicinal cannabis industry has grown too fast for the good of its own users. The industry’s bullishness has been curtailed after commercially driven high-volume prescribing turned patient wellbeing into a secondary consideration.

The Herald’s Angus Thomson reveals a new report by the Penington Institute, a harm-reduction research centre, showed medicinal cannabis sales fell nearly 30 per cent to 2.65 million units in the six months after July last year, when the watchdog put doctors prescribing large amounts of cannabis on notice over what it described as poor prescribing practices.

Doctors need to obtain permission from the Therapeutic Goods Administration to prescribe medicinal cannabis.

When Australia first approved cannabis for medical use in 2016, the........

© The Sydney Morning Herald