Medical Cannabis

The purpose of this Issues Backgrounder, by the NSW Parliamentary Research Service, is to consider the key legal issues that arise in relation to medical cannabis, in particular the relationship between Commonwealth and State laws. The second part of the paper sets out some of the key background sources relevant to the inquiry, parliamentary, scientific and legal.

The paper is organised under the following headings:

• Cannabis and the law in NSW
• The relevance of Commonwealth laws
• Australian parliamentary and government sources on medical cannabis
• Medical cannabis in selected overseas jurisdictions
• Selected peer-reviewed scientific research: 2008 to 2013
• Selected peer-reviewed legal, sociological and political research: 2008 to 2013