😎 TGA Cannabis Smackdown

TGA Cannabis Smackdown

Welcome to The Greenfields, your twice weekly newsletter that makes you smarter about the cannabis industry with news, information, and (possibly funny) for growers, doctors, pharmacists, techies, and anyone else.

Today we have:

• Cannabis industry news round-up

• The TGA is fining people and businesses for breaking advertising code

• How medicinal cannabis businesses advertise

News

• CBD Oil failed to improve quality of life and pain in palliative care - This trial was done using only CBD oil. The researchers are proposing another trial with THC and CBD.

• Cops claim rats ate their 200kg of cannabis - Indian police pull a “dog ate my homework” when 200kg of cannabis evidence disappears. If I were the judge I’d be asking for evidence of stoned rats.

• Pro-cannabis parties hold balance of power in Victorian upper house - Legalise Cannabis holds two seats and the Greens hold four, meaning that Labor will need to negotiate with pro-cannabis parties to pass laws.

• Releaf moves into a bigger place - 900sqm in St Kilda isn't cheap, things must be going well. No they aren't growing there.

• Wellnex Life (ASX:WNX) increases revenue by 54% in H1 FY23 - Medical cannabis brands coming in Q1 2023

TGA Medical Cannabis Smackdown

The TGA has started handing out some hefty fines to medical cannabis for violating rules about advertising medical products in Australia.

Who got fined by the Australian TGA?

1. Australian Institute of Medicinal Cannabis Pty Ltd (8 notices, $106,560)

2. Biologics Research Institute Australia Pty Ltd (10 notices, $133,200)

3. MGC Pharmaceuticals Ltd (23 notices, $306,360)

4. Cannatrek Ltd (22 notices, $293,040)

5. Little Green Pharma Ltd (28 notices, $372,960)

Damn... That's a lot! Over $1 million in fines. 

Why did they get fined?

TGA announced in September that they were cracking down on three things:

• The medical cannabis being offered does not meet the quality and safety standards.

• Advertising cannabis to the general public. Care needs to be taken not to promote its use or supply.

• References to a serious form of a disease, condition, ailment or defect that hasn't had prior approval from the TGA.

It’s not clear who did what based on the TGA announcements though. Cannatrek has now put up a login to access a lot of its content though...

How do I advertise my medical cannabis business?

Google’s Ads policy doesn’t allow for recreational drugs, and trying to create an ad for medicinal cannabis will get your ads pulled and a nice email from google:

Very non-judgemental Google.

If you want to advertise a business related to medical cannabis, you better avoid saying ‘medical cannabis' anywhere in your copy. The best example of this is Alternaleaf. Click an Alternaleaf ad on Google and you’ll land here:

Natural plant alternatives? Whatever could that be?Instead if you go to alternaleaf.com.au it’s pretty clear those “Natural, plant alternatives” are medical cannabis:

Greencare have been super crafty; there is no mention of medical cannabis on this page at all, but see if you can guess what they are offering:

They definitely aren’t selling Paracetamol.

That’s your walk through The Greenfields of the medical cannabis industry today. We hope you've enjoyed it. We’ll see you again next Tuesday, but if you want more before then follow us on Twitter or Facebook.