Could Australia Be the Next Country to Impose Tariffs on Canadian Cannabis?

Australia’s medical cannabis market is thriving, with revenues expected to grow from around US$600m in 2024 to more than US$1.2bn by 2028, according to Prohibition Partners’ Global Cannabis Report: 5th Edition.

This would see it significantly outpace the growth of its European counterparts, with the collective value of all medical cannabis sales in Europe predicted to top US$2.2 billion by 2028, meaning Australia would represent nearly half the entire region.

However, just like its European counterparts in Germany, Poland and elsewhere, this runaway growth is fuelling a major pushback from both industry stakeholders, who are calling for measures to stem the tide of imports, and lawmakers, who are calling for a crackdown on prescriptions.

According to the latest available official data, medical cannabis imports nearly doubled between 2022 and 2023, rising from 24,887kg to 42,104kg.

The vast majority of this came from Canada, which imported nearly 20 times that of the next highest exporter (South Africa) in 2023, seeing imports rise from 21,201kg to 34,005kg year on year.

Read the full story at Business of Cannabis