There is an understandable assumption at the centre of Australia’s medicinal cannabis industry: that once somethinghas passed through the hands of a doctor, it becomes a medicine. The product is prescribed, the pharmacy dispenses it, and the patient may reasonably conclude that what has occurred is medical care. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the doctor has investigated the patient’s circumstances, considered what the treatment is intended to change, weighed risk against benefit and returned...

The medicinal cannabis industry occupies a curious place in Australian healthcare. It is often spoken about as though it were simply another branch of pharmaceutical medicine. Yet anyone who has spent time working within it quickly discovers that it behaves unlike almost any other part of the health system. The relationships between doctors, pharmacies, manufacturers, wholesalers and patients often look very different from those found elsewhere in medicine. Commercial practices that would...

People tend to imagine medical cannabis in extremes. On one end: a cynical shortcut — a legal pathway for people chasing a cheap thrill, a “soft option” for those who don’t want to do the hard work of health. On the other: a miracle cure, sold with glossy certainty, as if a plant could tidy up life’s mess. Neither picture survives contact with a real clinic day. Because what comes through a cannabis clinician’s door — or, more often now, over the phone — is not a subculture. It’s a...