A new association uniting licensed medical cannabis growers across Australia is lobbying for more local production.
The ABC reports among the first actions of the Australian Cannabis Cultivator’s Guild was a letter to Australia’s federal health minister warning of “catastrophic failures” in the local industry due to the Australian market being flooded with imported products and rigorous, costly licensing processes.
While there are no fees for a licence and permit to import medicinal cannabis, local growers fork out around $50,000 a year for licensing and related inspections.
The Minister is yet to respond, although that’s not surprising as the dust is still settling from the Federal election and the makeup of the new Albanese cabinet is yet to be decided.
One of the issues identified is that of reciprocity – for example, the biggest source of overseas imports is Canada, which doesn’t allow Australian medical cannabis exports. But even if it did, Canada has an oversupply issue that would make it a difficult if not impossible market for Australian growers to enter.
The ABC report says domestic producers outsourcing production overseas meant Australia was missing out on an estimated 5,500 jobs.
According to the Guild, it is currently representing around 80% of Australia’s local medical cannabis cultivators. Among these companies are Tasmanian Botanics, ECS Botanics, Cannaponics and Cann Group. All told, eighteen growers are members.
One of the issues with cannabis industry associations – and this is by no means confined to Australia – is they start up with plenty of energy and good intentions; and then run out of steam. It will be interesting to see if the Guild meets the same fate.
According to a Pennington Institute report published late last year, Australians were expected to have spent a billion dollars on prescribed medicinal cannabis in 2024. In the first six months of last year, more than 2.87 million medicinal cannabis products were sold in Australia, up from 1.68 million sold in the second half of 2023. With an estimated 61 per cent of medicinal cannabis in Australia imported in 2023, that’s a lot of money flowing out that could be supporting Australian growers.
