Australian medicinal cannabis sales fell 28.5% in the second half of 2025 compared to the first half of the year, according to new data released by the Penington Institute in April 2026, marking the first significant drop in sales recorded since the country’s medicinal cannabis framework was introduced in 2016.

Data obtained by the Penington Institute from the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Aging through a freedom of information request shows sales peaked at 3.72 million units in the second half of 2024 and remained at 3.70 million units in the first half of 2025, before falling to 2.65 million units in the second half of the year. The decline followed a period of particularly significant growth in late 2023 and 2024, driven by increasing scrutiny from regulators and medical organizations over prescribing practices.

The Penington Institute attributes the reversal largely to a stepped-up enforcement campaign that has unfolded on multiple regulatory fronts since 2023. The Therapeutic Goods Administration banned the importation, advertising and supply of medicinal cannabis in 2023, and then issued millions of dollars in fines to non-compliant companies. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency published new clinical guidance for prescribers in July 2025 and, by mid-2025, had taken enforcement action against more than 50 doctors, with further investigations underway. Ahpra also issued explicit warnings warning health officials to prioritize patient well-being over profits.

The enforcement push was in response to documented concerns about high-volume, commercially driven prescriptions, some clinics conducting very brief clinical consultations, illegally advertising the drug to the public, failing to check real-time prescription monitoring systems, and using closed-loop business models in which medical cannabis brand companies also ran clinics prescribing their own products.

A wider TGA review of the patient access framework is ongoing. As of early April 2026, no reform recommendations have been announced. The Penington Institute’s report warns against major restrictions on patient access, the therapeutic benefits the drug provides to a large number of Australian patients, the lack of clear evidence linking medicinal cannabis to significant public health harm, and the presence of a robust illicit market that would absorb patients who would not be able to access legal avenues if access were restricted.

The report also points to product compliance testing as an area where existing standards are not applied consistently. Australian quality standards cover all medicinal cannabis products, but the TGA does not check compliance before the products reach patients, only conducting limited post-market risk-based testing, the results of which are not published. The issue is particularly relevant given that almost two-thirds of the flower volume sold in Australia in 2024 was imported, with some countries of origin maintaining lower regulatory standards than Australia. In April 2024, the TGA confirmed that it had not carried out tests on imported products in the previous 12 months.

The full Pennington Institute report, Medicinal Cannabis Sales and Regulatory Enforcement, can be seen here

Cannabis Caucus Co-Chairs Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Dina Titus (D-NV) yesterday introduced the Higher Education Marijuana Research Act to remove barriers to academic cannabis research, protect universities and researchers, and promote the responsible study of marijuana.
“As Chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, I am proud to support the Higher Education Marijuana Research Act, which removes outdated federal barriers that have long prevented universities from conducting critical cannabis research. This legislation protects universities and researchers while removing barriers so they can make better public health decisions,” said Congressman Ilhan Omar.
“The legal and responsible use of cannabis in Nevada has been an important economic driver across the country and deserves further investigation,” said Congressman Titus. “The Higher Education Marijuana Research Act would eliminate outdated federal restrictions that prevent universities and researchers from studying the full range of cannabis products that Americans actually use.”
Although 40 states have legalized medical marijuana and 24 states have legalized it for recreational use, federal law continues to impose significant barriers that limit meaningful research. Cannabis remains subject to restrictive federal controls that dictate who can conduct research, what products can be studied, and how studies are designed. Researchers are often limited to federally licensed cannabis that does not reflect the potency or variety available in state legal markets. Compounding these challenges, researchers must navigate stringent compliance requirements and uncertainty about legal liability. These obstacles have delayed clinical trials, limited understanding of long-term health effects, and left critical gaps in knowledge.

“It makes no sense for the federal government to interfere with this research when millions of Americans are already using marijuana, whether for medical or recreational purposes,” said Congressman Titus.

The Higher Education Marijuana Research Act is supported by the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the National Cannabis Industry Association, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the UNLV Cannabis Policy Institute.

“This legislation is needed more than ever as states continue to allow cannabis for medical and adult use. Even if cannabis is federally reclassified in the near future, there will be significant hurdles for scientists hoping to add to the existing research pool, especially when conducting clinical trials on health effects and examining state-regulated products. The bill moves forward again and calls on Congress to take immediate action to facilitate research, develop new medical treatments, to inform evidence-based policy and help consumers make informed choices,” said Morgan Fox, Policy Director of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

“The American public has made it clear that it wants access to safe, regulated, and tested cannabis products, and state legal markets continue to evolve to meet that demand. However, federal barriers have long limited researchers’ ability to study hemp in ways that reflect real-world conditions. The Higher Education Marijuana Research Act is a practical step toward expanding credible, real-world research by providing clarity and protection for NCIA universities. Supporting this legislation will help strengthen the industry’s scientific foundation. and will help better inform policymakers, regulators and consumers,” said Brooke Gilbert, Chief Operating Officer of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

“The Higher Education Marijuana Research Act is common-sense legislation that will help researchers better understand the types of cannabis produced in state-regulated markets. The bill will remove a major barrier that currently prevents scientists from learning more about state-regulated cannabis and its public health implications. Increasing the body of scientific evidence with better-informed research, increasing the body of scientific evidence with more informed research, evidence-based policy anyone who should leave,” he said. Drug Markets and the Legal System.

“Everyone, from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to the scientific community to the current and previous presidential administrations, has stated that cannabis research is necessary and important. This is the one issue that almost everyone can agree on these days, but not much progress is being made to reduce the current barriers to cannabis research. Congressman Titus’ bill has always been a common sense pro-cannabis research. Cannabis reform, it is only fitting that UNLV Cannabis Policy lead the charge now. The Institute applauds his efforts and hopes others will do the necessary work to reduce current barriers to cannabis research that only serve to maintain outdated prohibition-era policies,” said Riana Durrett, director of the UNLV Cannabis Policy Institute.

Source: Representative Ilhan Omar’s office

“What I experienced with ayahuasca was not an escape from grief, but a direct engagement with it… It was a fundamentally different process than what I had relied on throughout my career: not control or oppression, but forgiveness, surrender and understanding.”

By: Kemmi Sadler, Law Enforcement Action Partnership

Life has an interesting way of opening the eyes and the mind. Throughout my law enforcement career, I built my identity around evidence, discipline, and control. And to my surprise, it was this mindset that eventually led me to rethink everything I thought I knew about psychedelics.

My story begins with Amel. He was sixty years old and working for the US embassy in Iraq on his second tour when I arrived in 2006 as a bright-eyed young agent in the Diplomatic Security Service. In early 2007, her husband was kidnapped. He decided to save her, went to rescue her, and was taken away. Neither of them survived.

For the next 18 years, I felt I had to protect him—or at least stop him from going.

That guilt had a way of surfacing at unexpected moments. I felt how deeply grief had shaped me, even though I had kept it buried. But in a profession built around helping others, it’s hard to admit when you need help yourself.

So I went back to work.

My career included investigating fraud and human trafficking, followed by two years in internal affairs handling sexual assault and crimes against children. I prided myself on approaching each case without bias, following the evidence, testing hypotheses, and letting the facts guide me.

This commitment to evidence was ingrained early on, and it led me to question some basic assumptions about law enforcement. As a young police officer with the St. Augustine Police Department in Florida, I began to notice gaps between what the system was supposed to do and what it actually did. Not everyone was as afraid of arrest as I expected. Drug users, dealers, sex workers—they were often considered part of the equation. This time I got caught. Next time, I’ll be more careful.

Those early experiences brought to the fore a question I couldn’t shake: If consequences are supposed to change behavior, why not? I saw the same people over and over again through the system. A man, known to our department, got drunk, called 911 from a pay phone and yelled, “CHICKEN GEORGE IS COMING!” until the officers arrive. Looking back, I wonder if the detention itself offered something he didn’t get anywhere else—human interaction or just a night on the street.

The same instinct that led me to rethink aspects of my work also shaped how I began to deal with my unresolved grief. For years, I relied on the same framework to get by: control, compartmentalization, moving forward. But eventually, I began to wonder if the assumptions I made about trauma, like the ones I questioned at work, were incomplete.

Two years before I retired, I heard about ayahuasca on a podcast. It is a psychedelic preparation made from an Amazonian vine and a companion plant, used in ceremonial traditions for generations. What surprised me was not just what it was, but how it was discussed: with respect, even reverence.

This challenged a fundamental tenet of my law enforcement programming. As a product of the war on drugs, I believed that all illegal drugs were dangerous and destructive.

But after decades of watching cycles of addiction repeat themselves, and after losing my younger brother to heroin, I was forced to question whether this understanding was too simplistic.

So I did what I was trained to do. I researched it.

For over a year, I immersed myself in research on trauma and psychedelic therapy. I read clinical studies and heard veterans and others describe deep and often lasting healing and relief. At first, I was driven by intellectual curiosity and a commitment to follow the evidence, even if the conclusion directly contradicted what I had been taught. But beneath that curiosity was something more personal: the recognition that the tools I had relied on to manage my grief for decades were no longer working for me.

For years, I dealt with grief as many in our field do, mostly by repressing it and soldiering on. These skills were enough to keep me in the job. But in the retreat, they left me stuck, circling the same unresolved loss with no way out.

After careful consideration, I chose to attend an ayahuasca ceremony. At that time, I had never used illegal drugs. My substances were limited to alcohol and tobacco, both legal, socially acceptable and, in my case, convenient ways to deal with the grief bubbling under the skin.

What I experienced with Ayahuasca was not an escape from grief, but a direct engagement with it. The breakthrough wasn’t immediate, but with deliberate work and preparation, I was finally able to sit with the loss of Amel and the deaths of my father and brother without walking away. It was a different process than what I’ve relied on throughout my career, not control or oppression, but forgiveness, surrender and understanding.

This experience ultimately led me to write From the Badge to the Vine, a memoir about what it took to deal with years of trauma and the limitations of the tools I once relied on to manage it.

After a career spent investigating other people’s problems, I saw how rarely first responders are equipped or willing to examine their own injuries. The skills that define the profession—control, composure, endurance—can also make it harder to recognize when something deeper needs attention.

Trauma does not go away because it is repressed or managed. For some of us, that reality may not come into focus until after work is done and the radio is turned off. For others, the impact appears much earlier, in strained relationships, harmful behaviors, or a growing sense that something is not right but cannot be easily named.

What I have learned through this process is that ignoring these signs comes at a cost. Even assuming that the tools we were given at the beginning of our careers are the only ones available to us.

It is my hope that others in this profession will allow themselves to turn their investigative eyes inward in an effort to serve themselves. Ask the tough questions. Do your research. Follow the evidence where it leads. Not all things we were taught to fear are the same, and not all wounds are visible.

Special Agent in Charge Kemmi Sadler (Ret.) is the founder of Legalize the Divine, which advocates for safe and legal access to ancient healing traditions. A former St.Augustine, Florida Police Department officer, he is also a speaker for the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, and the author of From the Badge to the Vine: A Federal Agent’s Awakening Through Ayahuasca.