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Affordable Medicinal Cannabis Needed for Millions of Australians

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On Wednesday of the last sitting week in November, Senator Shoebridge proposed a bill to legalise cannabis. While support for legalising cannabis is growing strongly across Australia and Queensland, it’s essential to approach the topic with care, data, and diligence. It’s important to understand that despite claims by the TGA and the Lib-Lab UniParty that medicinal cannabis is freely available, the reality is quite different. The plant is artificially expensive and restricted in availability.

In an honest and effective way, we need to make medicinal cannabis easy and affordable to access for millions of Australians. One Nation will continue to lead the way in taking this first, humane step.

While we welcome much of Senator Shoebridge’s bill, there are three key sticking points that One Nation cannot accept:

1. One Nation cannot support home grow at this time. The trial of home cultivation in the ACT has shown it’s not widely adopted. A licensed commercial system would benefit more people than home grow at this stage

2. The fines and jail sentences proposed in the bill are excessively high. One Nation believes in ensuring that the punishment fits the crime, and this bill strangely gets that balance wrong.

3. One Nation does not support creating a new government entity to maintain a cultivar database. Instead, we would work with existing entities to achieve this purpose.

That said, the approach of removing cannabis from the control of pharmaceutical company salespeople at the TGA and establishing a new unit led by people who understand the plant, the industry, and can advance medicinal cannabis—is an excellent idea that One Nation fully supports.

A vote for One Nation is a vote for Australian, whole-plant, natural medicinal cannabis for anyone with a medical need. It would be accessible via a prescription from a doctor, nurse practitioner, or cannabis specialist, and filled by a pharmacist or qualified dispensary under the PBS.

This plan will not increase costs to taxpayers. Evidence from countries that have adopted this model shows that cannabis reduces healthcare spending, as it’s cheaper than many expensive pharmaceutical alternatives—if implemented correctly.

Transcript

There’s much in the Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 which would make the regulatory environment for cannabis in Australia much, much fairer, so I thank Senator Shoebridge for bringing this bill before the Senate. I feel very pleased to speak, excited about some things and disappointed about others. For too long, the government of the day, both Liberal and Labor, have acted to defend the pharmaceutical state from the competition that medical cannabis represents. Indeed, our regulatory body, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, is funded from the pharmaceutical industry that it purports to regulate. The result is regulatory capture. 

In recent years the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, has taken decisions that defy logic and that breach integrity—decisions that have placed 90 per cent of Australian adults at great risk of harm and death, decisions that have led to excess deaths it refuses to address, because the cause is the TGA and our health authorities. The TGA is a failed experiment; that is abundantly clear. It’s time to shut down the TGA and its apparatus of expert committees and agencies which act in concert to support the pharmaceutical industry to the detriment of the Australian people. It’s time to return control of drug and medical device approvals to the department, where the parliament will be able to exercise oversight and ensure accountability and transparency, which are sadly missing with the TGA. 

The department can be downsized. Health is the state responsibility. Centralised regulation of drugs in the hands of the Commonwealth makes sense, and the states should be charged the cost of doing it or do it themselves, as they used to. Cannabis was removed from medical options in Australia following the Menzies government’s passage of the National Health Act 1953. This legislation placed the British Pharmacopoeia as the primary source of standards for drugs in Australia. Cannabis was a stalwart of pharmacopoeia. In 2024 the only pharmacopoeia that still includes medicinal cannabis is the European version. My point is that cannabis was widely used and accepted as a legitimate medical option across a wide range of profiles for a wide range of conditions. Without a doubt, pharmaceuticals have been a boon for modern society in many ways, although for many people modern pharmaceuticals don’t work, or the side effects can exceed the benefit. There’s a simple reason for this: medical cannabis has thousands of versions, with different combinations of cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, steroids and other elements of the plant. There are thousands of elements. The Australian cannabis cultivar repository has almost 1,000 live cultivars of cannabis and is adding more all the time. 

The significance of this is that it allows a patient, under the right guidance, to match their strain of cannabis—known as the profile—to the condition that they have. Modern pharmaceuticals employ and promote the opposite approach, matching a pharmaceutical product to a condition—one size fits all, if you like. That’s not the way health should be. But both approaches should be available to the Australian people. 

I know the government and the opposition will point to the number of prescriptions written under the pathway scheme for medical cannabis and use that to mislead the public about the success of the current system. Before they make that ill-informed statement, I ask for an answer to the question the TGA refuses to answer: how many people who received a prescription for medical cannabis actually filled it? I’ll ask that again: how many people who received a prescription for medical cannabis actually filled it? My office is hearing from patients who could not afford the prescription, who could not find a chemist to fill it—often because supply was not available—and who paid out big money to get supply that was stale or even mouldy. I want to know how many people who used a medical cannabis product then suffered a side effect. I received a response to a question on notice around this last year. The answer, though, did not differentiate between legal and illegal supply. 

So many people have trouble with price or availability and they fill their prescription on the black market. Some of the black-market players run rings around the quality of the legal supply, and many others do not. On the volume of prescriptions written, though not necessarily filled, the rate of harm from medical cannabis is substantially below the rate of harm for many pharmaceutical drugs. Yet cannabis has not been embraced as an alternative treatment. It used to be the leading medicine in the medical almanac in the 1930s in America; it was No. 1. So why hasn’t it been embraced? Why has it been knocked out? Money talks. 

Restrictions to medical cannabis are more than directly regulatory. Other subtle hurdles make it difficult to access and use affordably, and that’s to the detriment of Australians’ health. Cannabis will never be approved because the cost of navigating the TGA system is so high that no cannabis supplier can afford it. The Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 contains a new regulator which could function as a unit with the department. The Cannabis Australia National Agency, CANA, would employ people who know the plant and who know how it should and should not be used. That’s a blessing. CANA would set standards for use, sale, promotion, production and importation without the need for a sponsor. CANA could work with the department to understand the supply needs of the pathway scheme to issue formal guidance on profile and volume until such time as the industry develop the critical mass to do that themselves. This solves the pathways scheme’s biggest hurdle: the supply is patchy and the quality is often rubbish. CANA would license strains of cannabis and issue guidance for use through a new agency. I suggest the Greens could have used the existing Australian cannabis register, although that’s a small point. Regulation is necessary. Some of these insane new varieties of cannabis coming out of the United States have THC levels above 30 per cent. The cannabis that came to Australia during the Vietnam War was only three per cent THC. Over 30 per cent THC is insane, though perhaps useful for palliative care at best. 

At this point, One Nation and the Greens diverge. The bill allows home cultivation of six plants. One Nation cannot support home grow. There is a qualification here: our opposition to home grow can exist only if Australians have access to safe, cheap, tested, licensed and accessible product, with a prescription from a doctor or nurse practitioner filled through a chemist or other suitable agent and supplied on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the PBS. One Nation introduced a bill which would have done just that, and it was roasted, including by the Greens, can I say. In an interesting example of karma, their bill met the same fate. 

The German government tried for two years, through 2022 and 2023, to introduce legislation which was similar to mine—sensible down-regulation of cannabis. They spent two years fighting entrenched interests, their own department and the Bundestag, the German parliament, and then lost patience. In a decision which could be characterised as ‘Stuff the lot of you’, the government simply legalised cannabis. That came into effect on 1 April this year. I’m pleased to inform the Senate that, in a country which is directly comparable to our country, Australia, legalised cannabis hasn’t caused the world to end. In fact, nothing harmful has happened. This was the same result in the Australian Capital Territory, which allowed home grow three years ago with the same result. No harm happened. In fact, nothing happened. And that is a problem. Legalising cannabis is supposed to help people treat medical conditions, reduce drug and alcohol addiction, reduce the presence of organised crime and chill. None of that appears to have occurred. Homegrown appeals to the small number of Australians within the cannabis community who know what they are doing and who have the land to home grow. For most Australians, regulated supply works better. At this point in the development of cannabis in Australia, regulated supply will help more Australians than home grow will. I’ll say that again. At this point in the development of cannabis, which is continuing, in Australia, regulated supply will help more Australians than will home grow. 

The cannabis community makes a mistake that I find quite frustrating. They judge the plant on the basis of their experience and knowledge. They advocate for open grow and use like it were nothing more than a herb. It’s not just a herb. As I said earlier, there are 1,000 different profiles, and that number is increasing. How does an average Australian, a typical Australian, with no or limited knowledge know which one is right, how to grow it properly, how to prepare it properly and how to store and use it correctly? A typical Australian doesn’t know that, and that suggests smoking the plant, which One Nation suggests is the worst way to take medicinal cannabis. The most scientific, the most accurate and the safest is to purchase a cannabis vaping solution and vape it. But I won’t go there further today. 

The other aspect of the bill One Nation cannot accept is the fines and jail sentences for minor breaches of the regulations. Seriously, six months in jail and 200 penalties earned, which is $36,000? On the other hand, children under 18 get off without a penalty at all. I get that the Greens are trying to raise the age of criminal responsibility, but a 17-year-old who starts a business growing and selling cannabis gets no penalty at all. One Nation questions that. This has not been thought through properly. 

Let me finish with a warning and an invitation. Increasingly, One Nation is tending to the German response. If you won’t allow sensible regulation, then no regulation it is. We need sensible regulation. One Nation is prepared to engage with the government and others across the Senate to achieve a sensible regulation of cannabis, including on the PBS. We continue to listen to the community, to the people, Queensland and Australia, because we want to achieve a sensible regulation of cannabis including on the PBS.  

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Pharma Exclusivity in TGA Processes a Barrier to Natural Products

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Before a drug or natural therapy can be approved by the “regulator” — the TGA — it must have a sponsor whose job is to pay the license fee, fill out the paperwork, and prepare safety and efficacy reports. These can be overseas because we no longer require local trials for new drugs. Drug companies are happy to develop new drugs and sponsor the applications because they have 25 years to get their money back from the patent which gives them exclusive rights to the product’s profits. After that, a product can be ‘generic’ or off-patent and any pharma company can make it.

Natural products such as cannabis and Aboriginal medicine from native plants cannot be patented which means nobody can afford to act as a sponsor. The result is the only thing doctors can prescribe are patented or ‘generic’ pharmaceutical drugs.

I asked why there is not an office of the consumer advocate who can sponsor natural therapies like Cannabis and Albicidin (a natural antibiotic). Instead, the TGA chose to speak about their program to re-purpose pharmaceutical drugs that have already been approved for different uses. This answer really shows the pharmaceutical mindset our health administrators have. The legislation needs to be changed to give natural products a path to market.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That leads to another point. It opens it up from this one. We have a system that says that, unless a product has a sponsor, it will never be approved. This isn’t the TGA system. They don’t write policy. This is a department and minister problem. There are multiple studies on the efficacy of medicinal cannabis for some conditions, and yet they’re not listed in schedule 4. There are 150 substances in Aboriginal medicine, yet only two have been commercialised, because natural products, even with postprocessing, can’t be approved by your system, because, without a patent, nobody will sponsor the product. Minister, why is there not a public advocate within the department that can bring natural remedies to the people under poison schedules 2, 3, 4 under the PBS where appropriate? 

Senator McCarthy: I will refer to the department. 

Prof. Lawler : As you highlighted and as we’ve discussed previously, the act does require a sponsor to bring medicines for evaluation. There are a number of reasons for this, and not least among them is the fact that, once a medicine is listed on the Register of Therapeutic Goods, there is a need for postmarket surveillance, pharmacovigilance, and safety and quality assurance, so it’s obviously very important that there be a point of accountability for these medicines. We are undertaking some work in terms of a repurposing initiative, and I will ask Mr Henderson to speak to that. It is about ways in which some of the medicines that are currently on the market can be used in other ways and how that might extend beyond the current sponsorship arrangements. 

Mr Henderson : As part of the last budget, the government approved funding of roughly $10 million over four years for the TGA to initiate a repurposing program for medicines. The context or the objective of that program is to incentivise sponsors—and non-pharmaceutical sponsors as part of that as well—to come forward with submissions to the TGA for medicines that are predominantly used off label. They are registered on the ARTG, the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, but for indications for which it may not have been feasible for low-population groups or niche population groups to have had a sponsor come forward in the past, so we’re looking to implement a program where we incentivise through waiving fees associated with the regulatory fees and charges as well as through working closely with our colleagues in the reimbursement space in relation to processes through the PBAC, pharmaceutical benefits and fee waivers. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. So there may be some hope. 

CHAIR: We will return to this after the break. 

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Anti-depressants Highlight Failure of our Health Policy

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Australia has the third highest rate of anti-depressant use in the western world. My question on the rate of anti-depressant use was clearly not one the Minister or the Department were expecting. To our health authorities, a positive outcome is getting a pharmaceutical product into someone’s body and calling the job done. Yet non-medical interventions for depression are available—exercise, social interactions and human touch (social dancing being a well-recognised therapy). These therapies are being ignored and high drug use celebrated. I believe this shows a pharmaceutical bias in the Health Department’s approach to depression. It feels like the Department of Health has become the Department of Pharmaceuticals.

Cannabis is used to treat depression overseas, yet this is not available in Australia in a practical way because no pharmaceutical company will sponsor a natural cannabis product. Why? Because the absence of a patent means they can’t get their money back on the cost of the application.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s move to antidepressants. Australia has an antidepressant use of 89 persons per 1,000. That’s the third-highest in the world, not far behind the highest, which is America at 110. The UK has less than we do: 71. Korea is the best at only 13. In other words, we have one of the highest rates of antidepressant use in the world. Isn’t this a failure of public health policy? We’re not treating these issues with a ‘Life. Be in it.’ campaign, knowing that exercise, dancing and group socialising all help with depression. We just write a script and call it done. Minister, what happened to preventive medicine—or is it now just about money for pharmaceutical companies?

Senator McCarthy: Again, your question is loaded with all sorts of accusations which I reject outright. We do our best to inform Australians of all things. In particular throughout COVID, we worked considerably hard to engage with communities remote and regional as well as across cities, so I reject the premise of your question.

Senator ROBERTS: This is not about COVID; this is about our remarkably high antidepressant use—close to the highest in the world.

Mr Comley: Professor Singer, would you like to make any comment on that as the Chief Medical Officer?

Prof. Singer: Clearly, there are different strategies used by different practitioners in relation to depression. A lot of the access to drugs depends on the access this is available as well as cultural factors. For example, you’ve commented that South Korea has a relatively low rate. I would expect that some of that would, in fact, relate to their cultural attitudes to the use of medication to treat depression as well as to attitudes around depression itself. I think one of the things that the use in Australia probably does indicate that people are prepared to be much more open about having depression and needing help. Clearly, prescriptions in some ways do reflect that issue.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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Pharma Exclusivity in TGA Processes a Barrier to Natural Products

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Before a drug or natural therapy can be approved by the “regulator” — the TGA — it must have a sponsor whose job is to pay the license fee, fill out the paperwork, and prepare safety and efficacy reports. These can be overseas because we no longer require local trials for new drugs. Drug companies are happy to develop new drugs and sponsor the applications because they have 25 years to get their money back from the patent which gives them exclusive rights to the product’s profits. After that, a product can be ‘generic’ or off-patent and any pharma company can make it.

Natural products such as cannabis and Aboriginal medicine from native plants cannot be patented which means nobody can afford to act as a sponsor. The result is the only thing doctors can prescribe are patented or ‘generic’ pharmaceutical drugs. I asked why there is not an office of the consumer advocate who can sponsor natural therapies like Cannabis and Albicidin (a natural antibiotic). Instead, the TGA chose to speak about their program to re-purpose pharmaceutical drugs that have already been approved for different uses. This answer really shows the pharmaceutical mindset our health administrators have.

The legislation needs to be changed to give natural products a path to market.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That leads to another point. It opens it up from this one. We have a system that says that, unless a product has a sponsor, it will never be approved. This isn’t the TGA system. They don’t write policy. This is a department and minister problem. There are multiple studies on the efficacy of medicinal cannabis for some conditions, and yet they’re not listed in schedule 4. There are 150 substances in Aboriginal medicine, yet only two have been commercialised, because natural products, even with postprocessing, can’t be approved by your system, because, without a patent, nobody will sponsor the product. Minister, why is there not a public advocate within the department that can bring natural remedies to the people under poison schedules 2, 3, 4 under the PBS where appropriate? 

Senator McCarthy: I will refer to the department. 

Prof. Lawler : As you highlighted and as we’ve discussed previously, the act does require a sponsor to bring medicines for evaluation. There are a number of reasons for this, and not least among them is the fact that, once a medicine is listed on the Register of Therapeutic Goods, there is a need for postmarket surveillance, pharmacovigilance, and safety and quality assurance, so it’s obviously very important that there be a point of accountability for these medicines. We are undertaking some work in terms of a repurposing initiative, and I will ask Mr Henderson to speak to that. It is about ways in which some of the medicines that are currently on the market can be used in other ways and how that might extend beyond the current sponsorship arrangements. 

Mr Henderson : As part of the last budget, the government approved funding of roughly $10 million over four years for the TGA to initiate a repurposing program for medicines. The context or the objective of that program is to incentivise sponsors—and non-pharmaceutical sponsors as part of that as well—to come forward with submissions to the TGA for medicines that are predominantly used off label. They are registered on the ARTG, the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, but for indications for which it may not have been feasible for low-population groups or niche population groups to have had a sponsor come forward in the past, so we’re looking to implement a program where we incentivise through waiving fees associated with the regulatory fees and charges as well as through working closely with our colleagues in the reimbursement space in relation to processes through the PBAC, pharmaceutical benefits and fee waivers. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. So there may be some hope. 

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Medicinal Cannabis Overdue for Down Regulation

Proven over thousands of years and once America’s most prescribed medicine – until Pharma realised the profits it could make from patented products – medicinal cannabis has much to offer in terms of health and well-being. With 820 varieties growing in the Australian cultivar database, there’s a cannabis strain for many individual health conditions.

The Therapeutic Goods Authority (TGA) however, insists on tight control of the industry. This inevitably has enabled criminal gangs to provide much of the domestic medicinal supply, leaving the public vulnerable to potentially narcotics-laced products in the black market.

One Nation has advanced legislation to down-regulate medicinal cannabis so that any doctor can prescribe medicinal cannabis for any patient with a medical need and have that prescription filled by a chemist on the PBS. The goal here is to remove the industry’s criminal elements while providing the widest range of quality, whole-plant and natural cannabis for individual patient needs.

The TGA has authorised a range of cannabis products for prescription under its restrictive pathways program, yet there’s no reason not to offer these products in schedule 4, for any doctor to prescribe — truly safe and effective products that have already been prescribed successfully for many years.

By restricting these products using an approval system that has buried the TGA in paperwork they never check, the TGA is just looking out for the pharmaceutical industry and ignoring the needs of everyday Australians.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people in our one Queensland community, I was pleased to accept an invitation from Isaac Balbin, founder of cannabis.org.au, to attend last Thursday’s national cannabis industry roundtable. What a pleasure it was meeting Isaac, Rhys and their team in Melbourne and speaking with other members of parliament who, like One Nation, believe medicinal cannabis is long overdue for sensible downregulation. Medicinal cannabis is marvellous. Proven over thousands of years, in the 1920s it was America’s most prescribed medicine before Big Pharma realised it could not make as much money from a natural plant. There are now 820 varieties—and growing—in the Australian cannabis cultivar database, many developed to suit specific health conditions or needs. 

Victorian MP David Limbrick made sensible comments about where the line between government regulation for the good of society and personal freedom should be—and it’s nowhere near where it is now. Legalise Cannabis Party MLC from Western Australia Sophia Moermond spoke to the need for some level of personal growth. While we may not agree on personal growing, there was so much commonality in views being expressed. I’m excited for the potential of the cannabis industry uniting behind a sensible cannabis downregulation. 

United Kingdom member of parliament Crispin Blunt updated us on how this is progressing better in the UK than here and provided a framework for evidence-based drug policy. Now, that’s an idea I can get behind: evidence based policy on medicine. 

One of Australia’s leading cannabis doctors, Dr Nic Guimmarra, Vice President of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, raised his concerns that the current licensing schedule has led to a situation where some disreputable cannabis clinics are pushing patients through so quickly that the resulting prescription and instructions for use are counterproductive for the patient. It’s One Nation’s belief that the heavily regulated and restricted pathway system is burying the Therapeutic Goods Administration in paperwork that it’s not checking, causing suboptimal care and, likely, patient harm as conditions worsen instead of being treated. 

This is why One Nation advanced legislation to downregulate medicinal cannabis so that any doctor can prescribe medicinal cannabis for any patient with a medical need and have that prescription filled by a chemist on the PBS. Our legislation harmonises the THC level below which a planet is hemp, not cannabis, to one per cent. This aligns with changes made in all states. The bill further adds a level of THC and CBD below which a pharmacist could sell the product to an adult without prescription. 

I was pleased to hear Michael Balderstone, President of the Legalise Cannabis Party and a legend of the Australian cannabis industry, warn that new hybrid cannabis strains with THC of up to 35 per cent were a concern needing some regulation. Thirty-five per cent THC is insane. It would suit the treatment of chronic pain and palliative care and very little else. Michael called for some commercial growth activity as otherwise development of new strains will be compromised. This is the problem with free growing without a commercial option. The plant works best when the profile of THC, CBD, terpenes and flavonoids are set to the needs of a person with a specific health condition. Unlike pharmaceuticals, with natural plant cannabis, one size is not expected to fit all. For this development to continue, it needs a commercial market presence. Consensus in the industry may ultimately fall on some level of licensed free growing. One Nation will cross that bridge, in consultation with our members, when we get there. 

Last Thursday I heard an analogy for free growing. It was the belief that, just because people can brew their own beer, it doesn’t mean people will. In fact, almost nobody does, because people can readily buy what’s needed commercially. The challenge is to take out the industry’s criminal elements while providing the widest range of quality Australian whole-plant and natural medicinal cannabis at an affordable price. 

It’s a scandal that regulatory authorities insist on tight volume controls that enable criminal gangs to provide much of the domestic medicinal supply. These are gangs that lace cannabis with narcotics and then deliberately target kids at events like Schoolies. The TGA is driving practices hurtful and dangerous to children. It’s a scandal that the minister could downschedule cannabis today yet has not done so; scheduling is regulatory, not legislative. It’s a scandal that some in the cannabis industry, including pioneers, have developed their business under the current regulatory regime environment and see downscheduling as a threat to their nice little money-earners. 

There’s no reason the entire cannabis product offering that the TGA has authorised for prescription under their restrictive pathways program could not be offered in schedule 4, for any doctor to prescribe—products that have already been prescribed successfully and safely for many years. The minister could use a regulatory instrument to make it happen today, yet he will not, because predatory billionaire owners of pharmaceutical companies pull the strings in Canberra. Australians with a medical need for cannabis don’t get a look-in. This government is saying to everyday Australians, ‘Your needs don’t matter.’  

The TGA monitors impacts of cannabis and has found that medicinal cannabis has a lower adverse event rate than prescribed pharmaceuticals. Sensible downregulation will save lives. It will provide hundreds of tailored strains of medicinal cannabis designed to ease suffering and improve the health of our society, while taking the profit and control away from crime gangs. I look forward to working with cannabis.org.au to make this happen. 

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One Nation introduces Bill to improve access to medicinal cannabis

I was very proud to introduce the Improving Access to Medicinal Cannabis Bill 2023. It has been too hard and too expensive for patients with severe conditions to access this drug.

One Nation’s will fix that for those in need of this amazing plant.

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We need more access to Medicinal Cannabis

Since 2016 One Nation has campaigned for the step of allowing medicinal cannabis with a doctor’s prescription. Now in 2021, 184,000 applications have been approved.1,000 people a year have died from pharmaceutical painkiller overdoses. We can save more lives by making medicinal cannabis more available to those who need it. That is the next step One Nation is calling on the Government to take.

Transcript

Mr President

Since 2016 One Nation has been campaigning for natural, Australian, whole plant medical cannabis under doctor’s prescription, available through chemists on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

So far in 2021 the TGA has approved 184,000 applications for medical cannabis – an exponential increase, with Queensland leading the way.

The world hasn’t ended. Nothing harmful happened.

People are being healed.

The first cannabis product has now been approved for supply under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for Dravet’s syndrome. It’s an extract not whole plant, yet at least it’s a natural product.

One Nation worked with the Government to introduce new cannabis licensing for export producers in 2019 that’s been largely responsible for the increase.

At the time the cannabis community did not understand why One Nation was celebrating regulation changes that provide companies with the certainty needed to enter export markets.

We’re now seeing the benefit of One Nation’s advocacy. Businesses expanded production for export and have been able to supply some of that product into the Australian prescription market.

This caused prices to fall and increased the range of available options, quality and availability.

In a Senate speech in 2019 I quoted a Roy Morgan survey that found medical cannabis could help one million Australians a year. That’s looking accurate.

Most of the growth in medical cannabis has come from pain relief, just one of the many uses for medical cannabis.

In 2019, 1000 Australians died of overdoses from prescription pain killers.

No-one’s ever died from prescription medical cannabis. There are more lives to be saved here moving patients from fatal narcotic drugs to medical cannabis.

I urge the Government to widen approved use of medical cannabis to include epilepsy and chemotherapy support, amongst others.

Our people, our community and our nation deserve improved access to medical cannabis.

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In support of Hemp

Hemp is a variety of cannabis that does not contain high levels of the psychoactive compound called THC, also referred to as marijuana. The war on THC has caused hemp to be stigmatised without reason.
Hemp is a modern commercial crop for use in paper, fabrics, natural pharmaceuticals, and, as Senator Whish-Wilson pointed out, in food.

What I would like to add to the debate is to point out that hemp is a fast-growing crop, which makes it suitable for opportunistic planting after rain. Used in rotation with grain crops, hemp can condition the soil and improve yields across the planting cycle.

Hemp is deeply rooted, which remediates soil and provides a crop to stabilise and protect topsoil in areas where erosion can be a problem. Hemp is being trialled as a forage crop in Tassie. Those are going to be healthy, happy cows. I urge all Australian farmers to take another look at hemp and join a world market expected to be valued at about $50 billion by 2026.

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Medical Cannabis & Hemp export industry given green light

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Transcript

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I’m delighted to say that this bill holds enormous promise. For far too long, cannabis and hemp have been suppressed for reasons that have everything to do with established interests, and nothing to do with the merits of the plant.

That has hurt people for years and is hurting hundreds of thousands of people now. This bill addresses one area that has been holding back the Australian cannabis and hemp industry. Currently, there is no formal system for providing approvals for the export of medical cannabis and hemp.

The approval must apply, the producer, sorry, must apply to the minister for an ad-hoc approval. While approvals have been granted, the volumes are a fraction of the potential that this crop offers. The Export Control Act, 2020 came in this year and it allows the minister to make rules that govern the issue of exports certificates.

If a substance is on the list, rules are issued to regulate the export of that substance. Now cannabis and hemp were not originally included in that bill. This amendment corrects that. Cannabis and hemp growers and manufacturers can now have certainty about the rules for export.

Every grower is on the same footing. All who meet the rules can get an export licence and sell the product into the world market, and what a market that is? The cannabis and hemp market in Australia is expected to grow to a billion dollars in just four years and double that to $2 billion by 2028.

And at that time, our near neighbours in Asia, in the Asian market will exceed $10 billion. This is a wonderful opportunity, the start of a wonderful opportunity. Australia’s reputation as a high quality, safe supplier of food and medicine will help our producers take a significant share of that huge market.

And I must compliment the government’s decision to require all cannabis producers to follow the International Safety and Quality Standard known as the GMP, good manufacturing practise. Quality processing has been instrumental in growing our reputation for trusted product and that means a lot to people overseas and in Australia.

Internationally, the world market for cannabis and hemp is expected to reach $50 billion by 2030. Some of this growth is from the trend to legalise recreational cannabis, which I need to make clear, One Nation does not support.

We do support natural, Australian whole plant medical cannabis by way of doctor’s prescription to any person with a medical need, supplied by a pharmacist, subsidised on the PBS. I note that the government is also looking to reschedule low THC cannabis into schedule three as an over-the-counter, chemist-only medication.

One Nation supports that reschedule. We have long pushed for this. The Liberal government talks about market efficiency but in the cannabis market, we have nothing but over-regulation and disincentives to enter the market. This bill will help but there is much, much more to be done.

I draw the government’s attention to the review of the Narcotic Drugs act conducted by Professor McMillan, which reported almost 12 months ago, July 2019. Professor McMillan made 26 recommendations to improve the commercial efficiency of the cannabis market in Australia.

None, none of those recommendations have currently been implemented. Many of those recommendations dovetail nicely with the intent of the Export Control Legislation Amendment to develop an Australian export industry for cannabis and hemp.

The report calls for a reduction in the onerous conditions being applied to the industry and to people who work in it. These restrictions are an unnecessary and costly barrier to efficient quality production. They’re holding our farmers back, they’re holding everyone in the supply chain back and holding customers back.

Professor McMillan has recommended that a single licence be issued for all or some of cultivation, production, manufacture and research. This is instead of the individual licences currently being required at each step. The report also suggested licences be valid for five years rather than 12 months.

Now most exported cannabis and hemp is value added, allowing one producer to now grow, process, manufacturer and research new products and a five year licence guarantees the security of their investment, which improves the return of their investment.

By encouraging vertical integration, our producers can benefit from multiple profit centres and insulate against fluctuations in one area of this emerging market. Export opportunities will be enhanced by a wider range of products offered for sale. Volume and diversity resulting from export markets will benefit domestic patients as well.

So let me explain. Currently medical cannabis is prohibitively expensive. This is in part due to the high administrative, regulatory and security costs imposed on each stage of the process from cultivating or importing through to selling the product to a patient.

This high cost is spread across low volumes because of restricted access making each prescription too expensive for patients to afford. And that creates an ongoing cycle of high prices and low affordability leading to low volume which leads to high prices. It’s a vicious cycle.

This bill represents a way out of that self-defeating cycle by allowing for the current small domestic demand to be met from high volume, low cost export production. Medical cannabis is best used when the plant has been processed as little as possible. It is a wonderful natural product.

Conversion into vaping solutions, patches, topicals and capsules does not disturb the compound profile of the plant. It is a wonderful product. Since medical cannabis has been legal for many years in well, most nations on the planet, we are seeing an explosion in new hybridised varieties of medical strains of cannabis.

I’ve seen some of them myself. These have been developed to provide an optimum profile for a specific medical condition. This wonderful plant, and it has many varieties can be tailored to specific needs of patients. And there are many patients in desperate need of this.

Hundreds of different varieties are now available to the world market, hundreds. The more of these varieties that can be grown in Australia to support export demand, the greater the variety that will be available to supply domestic patients. People can have this marvelous natural plant tailored to suit their specific medical needs.

With a professional, efficient, and profitable export industry, Australian patients will be able to access the exact cannabis profile for their particular health condition at much reduced prices, much greater value. So as a senator from Queensland, I’m excited that we have a growing centre for cannabis excellence in Southport.

Our beautiful climate is perfectly suited to growing hemp for food, textiles, cosmetics, oil, building products, and so much more. Queensland will be on the forefront of this multi billion dollar export industry for both hemp and cannabis.

One Nation’s policy of restoring property rights for farmers and building more dams will deliver to our farmers the capacity to grow Australia’s agricultural capacity through hemp and cannabis. Before closing, I want to reiterate what our party leader, Senator Hanson said and express my thanks to Senator Coleman from the Liberal Party and Senator Kitching from the Labor Party.

It was them who made it possible because Senator Hansen and some of our staff have been pushing for this for years vigorously and it’s wonderful to see this step. Tiny though it is, it is a wonderful step. So thank you. In closing, may I suggest that the success of this bill will depend upon what the export rules for cannabis are.

To date, rules on medical cannabis and hemp have been so damn onerous. People were left wondering if the government was fair dinkum about a plant that has so many proven applications, and so many successful runs on the board overseas.

We look forward to the government proving through fair and effective regulation, that they are indeed genuine about implementing this bill’s attention, thank you.

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Medical cannabis gets the green light

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One Nation has worked with the Government to pass legislation through the Senate to remove a major stumbling block that will expand the medical cannabis and hemp markets.

Senator Roberts said, “This is a game changer for the medical cannabis and hemp industries.”

The Certification of Narcotic Exports bill replaces the ad hoc approvals for exports with a streamlined process giving certainty to medical cannabis and hemp growers and manufacturers.

One Nation supports natural, whole plant medical cannabis via doctor’s prescription for a medical need, issued from a chemist and on the PBS, but does not support recreational use of cannabis.

“It is a lifeline for thousands of people currently forced to use illegal medical cannabis at high prices, as affordable legal cannabis is hard to obtain,” added Senator Roberts.

The bill will lead to a quick expansion of Australian production for export, which will bring about a greater range and lower prices for Australian patients.

Senator Roberts stated, “Export volumes assist local companies to grow plants with a wider range of profiles, allowing a patient to receive cannabis developed for their specific medical condition.”

“Australia has a unique competitive advantage with perfect climate, existing transport infrastructure and the international standard of Good Manufacturing Practice already in place.”

“Queensland is at the forefront of this multi-billion dollar export industry with a manufacturing facility at Southport, and expected growth to $1 billion over next four years.”

Hemp is known for its strength, durability and versatility, has wide application and its market growth looks promising. One Nation calls on the government to honour the intentions of this legislation and put in place export rules for cannabis that facilitate growers and manufacturers accessing export market.

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