ABSTRACT

The cannabis policy landscape is undergoing a process of profound change. There is increasing appetite around the world for policy approaches to cannabis other than the long-standing prohibition with criminal penalties. The cannabis legalization reforms underway in the US, Canada and Uruguay have renewed debate about appropriate policy settings for cannabis elsewhere, and the legalization of recreational cannabis use and supply is being seriously debated in a number of other countries. In Australia, since 2016, the Federal Parliament and many states and territories have passed laws allowing for medicinal cannabis. A number of drug policy scholars have pointed out there are actually a range of policy options for cannabis law reform between strict prohibition on one extreme and a profit-driven commercial market on the other. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.