Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the Narcotic Drugs Amendment (Medicinal Cannabis) Bill 2021. There still remains much to be done in the emerging area of the therapeutic use of medicinal cannabis. The legislation implements a number of recommendations from the McMillan review of the original legislation that was passed in this place in 2016 and streamlines various processes for industry participants. Medicinal cannabis is a very fast-developing therapeutic product, not just here in Australia but across the world—a product derived from the cannabis plant, which has some 80 to 100 different cannabinoids, only two of which are used for medicinal or therapeutic, as opposed to recreational, purposes. Labor acknowledges Australia's outstanding medicines approval authority, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which has the responsibility for assessing and then approving therapeutic goods and registering those goods on the ARTG, the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. Currently, the lack of availability of affordable, safe, approved products as part of the existing legal framework for the TGA in this legislation is leading the vast bulk of Australians who use medicinal cannabis products to access them outside the legal framework.