{"id":4552,"date":"2025-06-10T20:36:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T10:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/the-cannabis-con-how-australias-industry-became-a-profit-driven-prescription-mill\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T10:00:24","slug":"the-cannabis-con-how-australias-industry-became-a-profit-driven-prescription-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/the-cannabis-con-how-australias-industry-became-a-profit-driven-prescription-mill\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cannabis Con: How Australia\u2019s Industry Became a Profit-Driven Prescription Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"headonknees\"A System Built on Sentiment, Not Science: <\/strong>What began as a compassionate response to desperate families seeking relief for children with epilepsy has morphed into what critics aptly describe as \u201ca commercial monster\u201d \u2013 a barely regulated medicinal cannabis industry where doctors write cannabis prescriptions every four minutes and patients receive \u201cChernobyl-strength\u201d products after brief phone consultations with non-medical staff.<\/p>\n

The numbers are staggering and speak to a system utterly divorced from proper medical oversight. One doctor issued 17,000 scripts in six months<\/strong> \u2013 mathematically impossible to provide adequate patient care. Eight practitioners each churned out over 10,000 prescriptions for the highest-strength THC products<\/strong> in just half a year. A single pharmacist dispensed nearly one million cannabis products annually<\/strong> \u2013 that\u2019s 2,600 products every single day for an entire year without a break.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t the statistics of a carefully managed medical programme. They\u2019re the hallmarks of a prescription mill operating under the thin veneer of healthcare legitimacy.<\/p>\n

The \u201cVote for Medicine\u201d Deception: <\/strong>The rot began with what the Dalgarno Institute correctly identifies as the \u201cvote for medicine\u201d protocol \u2013 a deliberate strategy to bypass rigorous clinical trials and scientific evidence in favour of emotional manipulation and political pressure. The Victorian Law Reform Commission\u2019s 2014 consultation was a masterclass in manufactured consent, drawing from a mere 99 submissions<\/strong> and poorly attended public hearings dominated by cannabis advocates.<\/p>\n

Policymakers staged political theatre, disguising the legitimisation of a recreational drug as compassion and medical necessity, abandoning evidence-based policymaking. The consultation process heavily favoured bias, systematically marginalising and silencing the Dalgarno Institute\u2019s representative when they presented evidence-based research on cannabis harms. Meanwhile, cannabis advocates freely made unsubstantiated claims such as \u201cMany, many people have been cured \u2013 from just about anything and everything\u201d \u2013 statements now debunked by a decade of disappointing clinical outcomes.<\/p>\n

Doctors as Drug Dealers: <\/strong>The transformation of medical practitioners into what one doctor described as \u201cglorified cannabis dealers\u201d represents a fundamental corruption of the medical profession. Dr Claire Noonan\u2019s experience exposes the insidious pressure applied to healthcare providers: \u201cThere was a bit of pressure to be, perhaps more of a dealer\u2026 it\u2019s more being used for my signature on a script.\u201d<\/p>\n

When doctors earn money based on the number of prescriptions they write, when companies pressure practitioners to override their clinical judgment, and when nurses without medical training conduct \u201cconsultations,\u201d it stops being medicine. It\u2019s a sophisticated drug distribution network masquerading as healthcare.<\/p>\n

The conflict of interest is breathtaking: companies pay doctors to write prescriptions, then directly sell and ship the products to patients. This vertically integrated drug business model operates so efficiently and with such legal protection that it would make any street dealer envious. Some companies even pay commissions to shop owners who host their iPad kiosks, creating a multi-tiered financial incentive structure that has nothing to do with patient care and everything to do with maximising drug sales.<\/p>\n

The Australian Medical Association has recognised this perversion of medical practice, with doctors coining the phrase \u201cI\u2019m a healer not a dealer\u201d \u2013 yet the system continues to pressure practitioners into exactly that role. Young doctors and those without specialist training are particularly vulnerable to these pressures, potentially compromising an entire generation of medical professionals.<\/p>\n

<\/a>For complete article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A System Built on Sentiment, Not Science: What began as a compassionate response to desperate families seeking relief for children with epilepsy has morphed into what critics aptly describe as \u201ca commercial monster\u201d \u2013 a barely regulated medicinal cannabis industry where doctors write cannabis prescriptions every four minutes and patients receive \u201cChernobyl-strength\u201d products after brief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[77],"class_list":["post-4552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannabis-as-medicine","tag-cannabis-as-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}