Medical cannabis and CBD oil are increasingly becoming popular as therapeutic products. It has a lot of positive attention globally, mainly because of its potential health benefits that don’t affect negatively on the brain. With its increasing popularity, it’s difficult to obtain correct information regarding this topic. Particularly, it’s hard to identify what’s legal and how to buy them in Australia. In reality, one can’t just simply enter into a local chemist and purchase CBD oil off the shelf. This article will take you through the basic information you need to purchase CBD oil. 

Is CBD oil legal in Australia?

CBD oil has been legal in Australia since 2015. It’s legal only if it contains 98% of cannabidiol and 2% or less of other cannabinoids. It’s classified as a Schedule 4 drug meaning that you can only buy it through a doctor’s prescription at a pharmacy. Although the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has lowered the schedule for low-dose CBD in February 2021, there are still no TGA-approved products. This means that patients can only purchase CBD oil directly from the pharmacy or online without prescriptions. There are more than 2,500 doctors nationally prescribing medicinal cannabis, and approximately 200 of them can prescribe you medicinal cannabis straight away without waiting for TGA to approve. 

What are the benefits of CBD? 

CBD is completely non-psychoactive and it’s best known for its therapeutic effects. The effects are analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety, anti-spasmodic, anti-epileptic, and non-intoxicating. While CBD oil has all these amazing benefits, it’s important to buy the legal and regulated ones from the doctors, and not just any unregulated CBD oil online. Studies have found that unregulated CBD oil bought online rarely contains the amount of CBD it advertised. What’s more, nearly 70% of the CBD oils online were completely mislabeled. 

What health conditions can CBD oil help treat? 

Cannabidiol is a popular natural remedy used for many common ailments. People tend to go for CBD as it’s not psychoactive and would not have any other side effects when using it. The CBD oil is from the extraction of cannabis plants and diluting it with a carrier oil like coconut oil or hemp seed oil. And there are over 215 health conditions approved by the TGA for the therapeutic use of medicinal cannabis. Many health conditions can benefit from CBD oil such as anxiety disorders, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), children with Dravet syndrome, inflammation, people with high blood pressure, and many more. 

All in all, it’s still very much illegal to purchase CBD oil yourself online in Australia. Before you try CBD oil, discuss it with healthcare professionals to assess the safety and discuss appropriate dosing. Since everyone responds to medical cannabis like this differently, the recommendation would be to start with a very low dose. Patients can then gradually increase the amount to determine the effective dose. 

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