Bill
Improving Access to Medicinal Cannabis Bill 2023
lapsed, as at 2025-07-21.
- Sponsor
- Pauline Hanson
- Portfolio
- Not recorded
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2023-03-09
- second reading — 2023-03-09
- second reading — 2023-03-22
- other — 2025-07-21
Divisions
- Documents - Improving Access to Medicinal Cannabis Bill 2023 - Order for the Production of Documents — 2023-03-27, Senate: affirmative, ayes 37, noes 14
Plain-language summary
Written by a model from the explanatory memorandum; not the record, as at 2023-03-09.
The bill would make it easier for patients and their pets to get medicinal cannabis products.
It would do this by reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule 4 medicine, letting any doctor write a prescription, and by allowing some low-THC products to be sold over the counter.
Products with up to 1% THC and 10% CBD could be sold at chemists or vets to people over 18.
- The bill would let all medical practitioners prescribe medicinal cannabis for humans and animals.
- It would replace the current approved prescriber and special access schemes with ordinary prescription pathways.
- It would increase the legal THC limit for cannabis plants from 0.1% to 1%, matching state laws.
- It would allow some whole-plant cannabis products with up to 1% THC and 10% CBD to be sold without a prescription.
- It would keep the existing hemp food product rules unchanged.
- It would move the existing listing for nabiximols from Schedule 8 to Schedule 4.
Patients, their doctors, chemists, veterinarians, and the medicinal cannabis industry would be affected.
Sources
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