Australia
Australia’s cannabis market has seen a dynamic 2024 as there continue to be ongoing discussions and debates by parliamentarians regarding adult-use legalisation/decriminalisation on a federal and state level as well as polls suggesting significant support by the public to regulate cannabis for personal use.
In August 2023, David Shoebridge from the Australian Greens (NSW) introduced the ‘Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023’, which aimed to establish a national regulation. The bill would allow adults to cultivate up to six plants in their homes and establish a national agency for monitoring and regulating cannabis activities, including: manufacturing, selling, operating cannabis cafes, and importing and exporting adult-use cannabis. In September 2023, the Senate on Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee began an inquiry into the bill and, following concerns about the health risks attributed to cannabis by medical associations including the Australian Medical Association, the committee rejected the bill in May 2024.
Although the bill was rejected, the Australian Greens announced that they were not giving up, planning to bring the bill to a vote in the Senate. On 27 November 2024, the Australian Senate rejected the bill, as law makers voted 24-13 against the legislation.
Earlier polls suggested that there has been ongoing public support to establish adult-use regulations for possession and home cultivation in Australia. A survey conducted with 1,555 voters in December 2023 by YouGov, showed that 50% of Australians are in favour of legalising personal cannabis plants and that 54% are in favour of decriminalising cannabis.
In November 2024, the Pennington Institute, an Australian public health research and drug policy organisation, published its report titled ‘Cannabis in Australia 2024’ which highlighted that the current criminalisation of cannabis is ineffective as the government spends around AUS$2.1 billion (2023-2024) on cannabis law enforcement, however, cannabis remains more widely available than ever fuelling illicit market profits.
In terms of medical cannabis, Australia has witnessed a significant rise in units of medical cannabis sold in the first half of 2024 reaching 2.87 million units sold, representing a 58.5% increase compared to the second half of 2023 with only 1.68 million units sold. This is fuelled by the rise of prescriptions, patient numbers and imports with a significant driver attributed to telemedicine clinics which has reduced many bottlenecks associated with patient access, however, medical cannabis telehealth service clinics and their practices have come under public scrutiny by various health organisations and officials who deem that many are providing prescriptions too liberally as well as focusing on profits over patient well being. The negative press on telehealth clinics came after the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) raised concerns that telehealth providers were under-regulated and it was too easy to obtain a prescription. Additionally, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) launched a response unit in July 2024, after an investigation found that some practitioners were issuing 90 prescriptions to patients daily. This prompted the AHPRA to update its telehealth guidelines recommending patients receive real-time consultations and adequate care. This investigation also led to some clinics and GPs losing their licence to dispense and supply medical cannabis.
The theme of Australian medical cannabis companies focusing on profits over patient well-being continues to plague the industry, as, throughout 2024, The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) continued to issue fines to medical cannabis companies for unlawful advertising with the TGA issuing 35 infringement notices, in June 2024, totalling AUS$627,252 to six businesses and two individuals for unlawful advertising on their website or social media. However, it must be noted that the advertising of medical cannabis is very strict in Australia, providing companies with virtually no room to market themselves and potentially putting themselves in legal trouble unintentionally as words such as ‘medical cannabis’ or ‘plant medicine’ are not allowed to be advertised.
Regarding domestic production, exports and imports of medical cannabis in Australia, the latest figures for 2023 highlight that there continues to be strong growth in the market, placing Australia as one of the market leaders internationally.
In 2023, domestically produced cannabis saw a slight increase reaching 26.6 tonnes, a 6.7% increase, compared to 2022 (24.9 tonnes). Although domestic production has been ramping up in the country, imports of medical cannabis reached an all-time high of 42.1 tonnes which was a 69% increase compared to 2022 (24.8 tonnes) with 80% of imports stemming from Canada. The increase in Canadian imports has sparked an outcry of frustration from Australian cultivators/producers who claim that they are competitively disadvantaged as importers are using a loophole in which lower quality and lower cost products, imported from Canada, are being dumped in the market through GMP-compliant packaging facilities. They claim that the excess supply of Canadian products has caused a wholesale price compression in the country with wholesale prices roughly at AU$6 a gram in 2023 dropping to AU$4-4.50 in 2024.
Following Canada, the next five leading import countries are: South Africa (1.8 tonnes), Denmark (1.7 tonnes), Portugal (1.4 tonnes), North Macedonia (1.1 tonnes) and Columbia (467 kilograms). In terms of new entrants, Australia saw its first medical cannabis imports from Thailand (11 kilograms) and Uruguay (120 kilograms) in 2023.
In 2023, Australian medical cannabis exports reached a little over 2 tonnes, which is a 36.8% increase compared to 2022 (1.5 tonnes). Germany was the top export destination (839 kilograms) followed by the UK (640 kilograms) and New Zealand (587 kilograms).
New Zealand
The cannabis industry in New Zealand is growing quickly, both in terms of domestic production for export, and in consumption.
Changes to export regulations, made in July, have significantly eased the requirements for exporters of medical cannabis. Before the rule change, exporters had to ensure that their products met, both the New Zealand quality standards for medical cannabis products used to treat patients, as well as those of the importing country. The government has now altered these regulations, leaving just the requirement to meet the quality standards of the importing country.
This has paved the way for much larger volumes of exports of medical cannabis, which had previously only taken place at a small scale, and New Zealand producers have already begun scaling up and signing export agreements.
It is also good news for medical cannabis patients in the country, with the greater production sizes expected to result in economies of scale for the producers, and therefore a lower product cost to patients for domestically produced medical cannabis. The majority of the products used for treatment in New Zealand currently are imported, primarily from Australia and Canada, with a smaller share of the market represented by domestically produced products.
As has been the case elsewhere, private, remote prescription and telehealth have been driving growth in patient numbers and with access to medical cannabis. The development of private, cannabis-specialised clinics in New Zealand is a response to the fact that standard clinics and GPs are not generally offering medical cannabis alongside other medicine, despite its legality.
In the past two years the main type of products prescribed has changed significantly. The majority of products used in treatment were previously oils, with CBD as the main ingredient, whereas now the majority of products are high-THC flower. This shift has coincided with the expansion of patients and prescription numbers, with the number of prescriptions issued doubling in 2023 versus those issued in 2022. This trend looks set to continue in 2024, with over 20,000 products currently being prescribed, on a monthly basis.
