While still in its early stages, the cannabis industry in the United States has come a long way in a short amount of time. CBD products in wellness stores, smoothie shops and gas stations are now commonplace. Many obstacles continue to frustrate and plague the industry, but a look into the current state of cannabis in Australia illustrates just how far we’ve come.
Cannabis Consumption in Australia is HIGH
Cannabis has been used by one-third of all Australians aged 22 or older. About 5.8 million people have tried cannabis, and 1 million report using it in the past year. It is estimated that 750,000 Australians use cannabis every week, and approximately 300,000 use it on a daily basis.
Cannabis use in australia
The Tides turn down under
Australia has one of the highest cannabis prevalence rates in the world, especially concentrated among its indigenous population. Although recreational cannabis use remains illegal, the country has largely avoided a punitive drug policy, focusing instead on harm-minimisation strategies, and a treatment framework embedded within its law-enforcement. Without the same stigma imposed by our own criminal justice system, politicians have lent increasing support towards the legalisation of marijuana, with senators and representatives from both majority sides of the cabinet “throwing their support behind the legalisation of medical cannabis.”
Australia Legalizes Medical marijuana
In February 2016, Australian lawmakers passed a bill that legalized medicinal cannabis for approved patients. While legal access to cannabis sounds great, many Australians are experiencing one of the largest problems in the cannabis industry, and one Americans know all too well: price gouging.
Major points argued by the industry currently producing cannabis for the medicinal program in Australia are:
- Costs are high due to the expensive process needed to meet their standards
- You can’t trust potency or quality from a consumer facing company
Sound familiar? Looking at trends in our own industry, costs have precipitously fallen from their high point in 2012.
Falling CBD Prices in the US
As both a cause and effect of this decline, company’s have had to innovate in order to maintain high standards while bringing the cost of their production inline with less expensive price points. As for trusting a company’s product, today’s savvy consumer will verify the product has been lab tested, and some even go so far as to get their own lab reports done.
A quality lab report indicates:
- potency
- residual solvents
- heavy metal and pesticide free
Interested in an affordable / high quality lab test? Check out our Analytical Services.
The burgeoning black market for medicinal marijuana
The inspiration for this blog post came from an ABC news spot (watch below) about soaring costs of cannabis in the Australian market. With prohibitively steep prices, many in Australia have turned to the black market as the only viable way they can continue treatment. Fortunately, one person discovered Extract Labs and uses our very own original CBD tincture as the most affordable and effective treatment for Crohn’s Disease.
Video Source: https://www.abc.net.au/
Extract Labs CBD Tincture Treats one man’s Crohn's Disease
In the video above, Brent uses cannabis to help manage his Crohn’s Disease, a condition that causes inflammation and deterioration of the small intestine. Once approved by his doctor for the program, he found that a prescription for cannabis oil would cost him around $600 per month. By comparison, an equivalent daily dose of CBD costs between $50 and $90 per month when using Extract Labs CBD tinctures.
For those who are familiar with Extract Labs, you know how obsessed we are with perfection and transparency. If you are one of the many Australians visiting us from the news story you saw, welcome! Allow us to introduce ourselves.
We are Extract Labs, a hemp extraction company located in Boulder, Colorado. While CBD has become a crowded playing field to say the least, Extract Labs distinguishes itself by managing all aspects of the business in-house. From extraction and distillation to formulation and shipping, we do it all. Our facilities are cGMP certified (current Good Manufacturing Practice), a standard set it place by the Food and Drug Administration to make sure products are made in a clean and safe environment (we scored in the upper 90th percentile! just sayin’…).
Lab tested for purity and potency
All our CBD products come labeled with a batch number. This batch number can be input into our Batch Database which provides a lab report for download. With this in hand, you can see for yourself the quality we profess. We also maintain other standards of quality, such as certified Kosher, certified Vegan, non-GMO and use only organic ingredients in all of our products.
Award winning extraction lab
- Best Hemp Processor two years in a row from Grow Hemp Colorado’s Consumer’s Choice Awards
- Men’s Health: Best Athletic Recovery Balm
- CBD Validator’s Top 10 Best CBD
According to the video featured in this blog post, all this quality comes at a cost that private companies can only cut corners to lower. While things like CO2 extraction and lab tests do add to higher production costs, Extract Labs is still able to ballpark around $0.05 per milligram of CBD, compared to an average of roughly $0.60 paid for an equivalent product.
Our commitment to you
Our goal as a company is to promote health and wellness through the power of plants, not just pad our pockets on a mission to become Big Pharma 2.0.
So again, welcome. We’re glad you’re here! If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out to us. We will always do our best to help, but please be patient with response times. The time difference will cause some delays now and again, but we will always get back to you in a timely manner. Thank you for stopping by!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Australia
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/inside-the-burgeoning-black-market-for-medicinal/11978232?fbclid=IwAR2T9oszuntBqEnk918ZPlOZfGpykNnoSpDW7EoDlPQM34uddIEzPZk87oo
