Most Australians Still Source Their Medical Marijuana Illegally

A new survey of 1,388 respondents revealed some of the downfalls of Australia’s Medicinal cannabis industry.

A Cannabis as Medicine Survey (CAMS-18) was published last week in order to diagnose the current state of Australia’s medicinal marijuana industry and found several expected, but troubling results.

Medical cannabis was made legal in November 2016, and although access to cannabis products was initially limited, Australians are now gaining approval for medical cannabis prescriptions at record rates, exponentially higher than when medical marijuana was first made legal. However, it’s evident there’s still a long way to go for Australian citizens to get adequate access to cannabis medicines.

The CAMS-18 survey was an anonymous, online cross-sectional survey that utilized online media in order to recruit respondents aged over 18 that reside in Australia and use cannabis for therapeutic purposes. Respondents reported using cannabis to treat pain (36.4%), mental health (32.8%), sleep (9.2%), neurological (5.2%) and cancer (3.8%), with respondents using cannabis roughly 15 days per month.

The majority of respondents were employed in a full-time position, were university-educated, and the…