Leura Wellness co-founder and director Dr Orit Holtzman argues that the Australian market's fixation on high-THC products has little to do with science and everything to do with consumer appetite — and she is deeply troubled by it.
I'm at my desk when the familiar notification chimes. There's a brief, irrational spike of anticipation — a new email.
That feeling evaporates the moment I read the subject line: "Introducing five new vape medicines." Do we genuinely need five more vapes on the market?
A glance at online database Catalyst reveals more than 70 vape products already available, the majority of which fall into category five — containing upwards of 98% THC. CBD and other minor cannabinoids barely feature.
Australia's medical cannabis sector has developed a fixation on THC. Higher and more concentrated is treated as automatically superior. These products do have practical virtues — compact, cost-effective, and discreet enough to slip into a pocket and use anywhere without fuss.
But does a quick dose of a high-THC product actually serve the needs of someone managing a chronic health condition?
Even the illicit cannabis market was not always built around maximum potency. An analysis of THC content in illicit cannabis found that average potency sat around 4% in the 1990s, climbing to approximately 12% by 2014.
Today, finding a medical cannabis product with THC below 20% is a genuine challenge. The question is whether this escalation actually delivers better outcomes — and the scientific evidence suggests it does not.
“We have a medical market that is not guided by scientific evidence and therapeutic need, but by consumer demand.”
A Lancet review found that THC produces adverse psychoactive effects — among them psychosis, anxiety, and depression-like symptoms — with higher doses amplifying these risks, particularly for patients with pre-existing cognitive impairment.
A broad body of research has documented the biphasic nature of cannabinoids across anxiety, motor activity, memory, and cognition: lower doses tend to produce improvement, while higher doses cause impairment and worsen underlying symptoms.
Even chronic pain research has identified a therapeutic ceiling, where excessively high THC doses deliver no benefit — or may actually intensify pain levels.
Set against the limited long-term safety data on liquid vaping products, what is fuelling this trend? The answer is not difficult to find. It is what the market demands — that market most likely being the 20-to-45-year-old demographic that shares anecdotal experiences on Reddit.
That is the current state of affairs. Australia's medical cannabis market is being shaped not by clinical evidence or therapeutic need, but by what consumers say they want.
Whether that is a sustainable or responsible direction for a medical industry is a question the sector urgently needs to sit with. A more considered path forward is both possible and long overdue.
