Awkward Commercialization: Legalizing Cannabis While Sidestepping the Harms of Prohibition in Australia's Medicalized Cannabis Market

The way we end the war on drugs matters: Social justice requires acknowledging and addressing the harms inflicted on racialized communities by decades of punitive drug policies. Consequently, in the area of cannabis, many jurisdictions have accompanied relaxation of prohibitionist regulations with measures such as expungements of past convictions, preferential licensing, and community-focused reparative schemes aimed at supporting marginalized populations. However, some jurisdictions ignore the past injustices and proceed with cannabis legalization without addressing them. This article examines how Australia has moved toward de facto cannabis legalization under the veil of medicalization, without addressing the historical and ongoing harms of prohibition. The article first outlines the continuing impacts of Australia's cannabis laws, particularly their disproportionate effects on Indigenous peoples, and then analyzes the rapid expansion of the medical cannabis sector, characterized by vertically integrated, commercially aggressive online clinics. It follows that Australia has liberalized access to cannabis while sidestepping the need to confront the injustices of past policies. Moreover, the medical market is structured and regulated in a way that makes it function akin to a legalized cannabis market, yet it continues the patterns of exclusion and inequality along racial and socioeconomic lines. As a result, Australia's current approach not only fails to redress past harms but entrenches a modified, medicalized form of colonization through a predominantly white, commercially driven cannabis system.