Growing the pie: how we take cannabis from the fringe to the mainstream

Cannabiz editor-at-large Rhys Cohen says improving patient access needs more than clinics and trail-blazing doctors.

It’s been nearly six years since I first got involved in medicinal cannabis policy in Australia. Recently I’ve been trying to take a longer-term view of things, looking back at some of the challenges we’ve experienced and the progress that we’ve made as a community.

I remember the first time we saw the number of monthly SAS-B approvals hit 100, back in 2018. It was a brutal time for patient access, but hitting 100 felt like a real achievement. The next year we broke 1,000. Two years after that we hit 10,000.