We Asked The World What They Think About Cannabis in Australia
- Danielle (27) Japanese Chef in Brazil
- Hannah Jenkins (42) Researcher in Wales
- Nahir Sanchez (26) Nurse in Spain
- Mia Kim (25) English Teacher in South Korea
- Francesca Rosso (38) PR Communications in Italy
- William Cage (31) Lawyer in the United States of America
- Omar Gamal (52) Journalist in Egypt
- Hailey Larson (28) Journalist in Canada
Cannabis Place has asked Australians what they look forward to & their fears in the growing cannabis industry in Australia. But what do other countries think about Australia? Do they also see the potential benefits Australia can offer? According to Business Insider, Canada’s leading cannabis cultivator has tipped the Australian cannabis industry to become the ‘envy of the global market’ due to high agricultural industry standards.
This time, Cannabis Place offers an exclusive insight into how civilians from different countries react when asked about the growing cannabis industry in Australia.
Table of Contents.
Danielle (27) Japanese Chef in Brazil
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: I actually just consume cannabis with my friends so yes, recreationally but I don’t use cannabis often.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: Actually this week in my city (Rio de Janeiro) they just approved a law to research the benefits of medicinal usages of cannabis. In general, Brazil is very conservative about cannabis. They don’t allow people to smoke and if the police see you in the street with a certain amount of cannabis you can go to jail.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: People here have a lot of negative judgement with cannabis so they associate it with bad guys so if people see you smoking, they see you as a criminal. Most of the people here don’t see cannabis as a positive thing. If you are white and rich you can smoke and the police stop you, they will let you go. But if you are black or mixed, you will probably be in trouble so drugs are associated with racism as well.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No, I didn’t.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: I feel that they are more open-minded and they are okay with cannabis. And if the money from cannabis can be used for society, that’s great.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: I think the cannabis industry has a lot of potentials so if Australia progresses, there will be a lot of benefits that Australians can use for example public health and education so they are going in the right track and it’s a big step.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: I think it’s only natural that they will recognise the benefits from countries that already legalised cannabis and are profiting off of it. So yes, I think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: I think it can be interesting because Holland is the first thing we think of cannabis tourism. So it will be another option for people who live closer to Australia and it’ll be cheaper rather than going to Holland. They have to advertise it more because of the competition but they can totally do it!
Hannah Jenkins (42) Researcher in Wales
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: Recreationally, a few times a week. During the lockdown, a few times a week but other than that a few times every now and again.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: It’s classified as a Class B drug at the moment. So Class A is the most dangerous drugs and it (cannabis) used to be a Class C drug, meaning you just get a slap on the wrist. With cannabis being a Class B, you can get fined or put in prison for having it on you depending on how much you have and if you are dealing it. That’s the law, but on the ground, cannabis doesn’t have much stigma than other Class B drugs.
Question: What’re the other Class B drugs?
Answer: Amphetamines, codeine, and Ketamine. See, that’s what I mean - if someone said to me ‘I’m going to take some Ket’, I would be like Hey! Hold on there! I wouldn’t do the same if someone said they were going to smoke weed.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: Cannabis is not frowned upon in the same way that other drugs are. You can smoke it public and not have anyone approach you to stop, especially in a city here. Obviously, if the police see you they would probably stop you and ask you to put that out. If you got a bag on you they have the right to arrest you then, but I’m not sure if that actually happens.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: Wait, Canberra already decriminalised it?
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: Seems really similar to the UK, I think. As in, you are in the cusp of not being taboo. The U.S. or some of its states cannabis is already legal, Canada as well. I think Australia and the UK are in quite similar points where the law doesn’t reflect people’s attitudes as a whole. Cannabis is becoming more and more accepted in society.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: I don’t know much, I’m not going to lie to you. I just know that there are websites that do sell CBD and stuff like that.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: Maybe. It’s another English-speaking country, it’s culturally quite similar…. It does make me wonder because I think all over the English-speaking countries, cannabis is quite socially acceptable? I guess it depends on political circumstance. For example in the U.S., blue states tend to be the ones legalising cannabis, whereas I can’t see that anytime soon in the UK because you got Tory government and I know that the Australian government is not the most liberal in the world, so… it depends.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: Yes, I think that’s really cool. Because people in the UK tend to go on weekends to Amsterdam. You think how much of a boom that is for Amsterdam, I would be spending weeks at a beach in Australia with cannabis. That is really appealing and when I think about how many British people go to Australia, I don’t know why Australia hasn’t thought about this before.
Nahir Sanchez (26) Nurse in Spain
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: No, I don’t.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: It’s weird because it’s legal to consume cannabis in some places and it’s illegal to do it in others. You can consume it in private clubs (advertised as cannabis clubs) but you cannot in public. You would get 600 Euro fine if it’s your first offence. You can cultivate cannabis but it must not be seen in public, not to normalise it I guess.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: There’s going to be different opinions based on which part of Spain you live in, but I don’t think it’s super common to see people smoking cannabis in public. You can definitely spot on once in a while but it’s not common, at least where I live.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No, I have no idea.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: I think most Australians would agree to legalise cannabis.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t think Australia has the environment to cultivate cannabis. I have no idea to cultivate marijuana, first of all, but I think you must have certain conditions and Australia doesn’t have that. In my opinion, they will get other countries involved because they will need support to cultivate cannabis.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: Yes, maybe that’s where Australia will receive support from.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: If tourism gets bigger in Australia because of cannabis, it’s going to be interesting because the country will gain money, but it won’t be a huge benefit because I don’t think you would want to attract people to your country because of marijuana. It’s not attracting people to play sports or doing something else. I think it will lead to spiral negatively like in some parts in Spain where stupid tourists get drunk, do crazy things in the streets and driving local/tourists away. I think something similar will happen in Australia and I’m not interested in going. If I want to smoke, I would go to Amsterdam instead. It’ll be cheaper and I don’t think I would have the money to go to Australia just for cannabis.
Mia Kim (25) English Teacher in South Korea
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: No, I don’t.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: Recreational cannabis is illegal but since 2018, South Korea legalised medical cannabis to treat people with rare, untreatable diseases such as epilepsy, cancer, brain diseases and so forth.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: Generally, it’s very negative. South Koreans don’t know the difference between cocaine and marijuana - if it’s classified as a drug, every drug is considered taboo.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No, I never heard about it. I’m shocked.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: In my opinion, I think it’s fine? I know in Korea it’s legal to grow and consume cannabis as long as it’s for personal use. I don’t see why Australia can’t do the same thing.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: Not at all. But I hope that if the cannabis industry grows in Australia, there will be a firm system put in place. There will be social implications when industries start to normalise cannabis, for example. That’s my opinion.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: Probably. Why not? It will make money and it will affect the nation in a really big way. I guess Australia will follow Canada in every footstep it took, given the positive effects it brought.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: Recreationally, I wouldn’t pay. I never consumed cannabis and I’m not planning to. But cannabis tourism will definitely be popular if it’s legalised. I read an article about Amsterdam and how it’s tourism got bigger because of cannabis so why not Australia?
Francesca Rosso (38) PR Communications in Italy
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: No. I tried but since I’m on other medications, it didn’t work out well. But I don’t know if there is a connection between the two things but I got scared.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: It is not illegal to have cannabis for personal use but it’s illegal to sell or give away. You can also grow for personal use. The point is that cannabis is not legal, but not punishable - it’s in a grey area.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: It depends on the area and the generations. For young people, they don’t have problems and cannabis is not frowned upon. Among older people, there is quite a lot of stigma to cannabis. In politics, they are a lot of confusion between all the drugs and cannabis. It’s as if everything is lumped together and all the drugs are the same, all the people who use drugs are bad people. This is usually common in right-wing politics - ‘oh look at those young kids who smoke those joints, they’re criminals!’
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No, I didn’t.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: I don’t know much about it.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: I think overall, Anglosaxian countries are more open about cannabis rather than Italy. For example, Canada legalised cannabis and it can be a great market. My point is is that if you stop staying that something is illegal, you would have more rules and it will create less problems.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: If it turns out that cannabis works well in Canada, might as well set up a precedence for other countries to follow.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: I wouldn’t because I’m not into smoking, but I assume people would. I’d rather spend money on other things. Not because I find cannabis wrong, just because I prefer other things.
William Cage (31) Lawyer in the United States of America
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: Yes, I smoke recreationally when there’s a special event or holiday that takes place.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: It depends where you are in the country. Different states have different laws regarding cannabis so where I live in the state of Missouri, they’re beginning to open up the market for medicinal cannabis. In the States system, before legalising recreational cannabis, it has to go through the medicinal stages of implementation in society. In Colorado, or out west in California, Washington, they can consume recreational cannabis.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: I’d say its about 70% for, 30% against but the way the law and the system are set up, you have to go through a lot of different legal layers in order to actually making it socially acceptable in practice. It’s a change that’s coming for sure. But as a country, our laws are old even though our country is young.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: I think it’s similar to the UK and Europe - the ideology of cannabis is changing towards being more acceptable but all these countries are based on rules that in order to actually make it such that way and not just thinking of it, there’s a process. But it’s a change that we will definitely see over the next two to five years.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: I’m curious to know how young their representatives are in Australia. As an example, in the United States, the average age of a representative is 59 years old. And the average age of a senator is 63. So more the country is still structurally run by the people living with the mentality from the 50s, 60s, 70s. So that will be a major influence within the industry.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: I would say yes, if not more because Australia is popular with tourism they would see a huge benefit towards their economy.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: I think cannabis tourism will make Australia more attractive as a tourist sport because of what legalised marijuana says for the culture of how people live and exist with one another. The more structure society has, the tenser it is.
Omar Gamal (52) Journalist in Egypt
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: No.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: The law forbids it but you can buy it illegally from dealers.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: People perceive cannabis as something unhealthy, something that damages your health and forbidden by law and religion. The culture in Egypt and the Middle East have strict relations with religion so religion plays an important role. But on the other hand, there are a lot of people who smoke cannabis illegally and they don’t think it’s a big problem and it’s just herbs made from nature.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No, I haven’t heard about this.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: I’m totally against using and smoking marijuana or legalising marijuana. I do believe it can damage your health and brain so I hope Australia does not have the same relaxed attitude as other countries.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: No, I don’t have a good idea.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: Maybe because I think commonwealth countries are now going towards legalising a lot of things, not only cannabis and are less strict for medical patients, so why not?
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: I think many people will go to Australia for cannabis but from my point of view, not many people from the Middle East will go because you can easily get cannabis here so there is no problem. I know it’s something illegal here but you can still buy and smoke it. So for me, if I smoke marijuana I wouldn’t visit Australia specifically for cannabis tourism.
Hailey Larson (28) Journalist in Canada
Question: Do you recreationally/medically use cannabis?
Answer: Yes, recreationally. Since now that cannabis is legal in Canada, I probably smoke three times a week.
Question: Can you briefly explain what the laws around cannabis in your country are?
Answer: Cannabis is officially legal across Canada in all provinces and territories. It must be purchased from the government in order to be legal. There still is illegal trafficking of marijuana so you can still buy it off of the black market, I guess you would call it, but the penalties for doing that are pretty low and are not enforced. So it’s a very relaxed system of law surrounding cannabis and it’s not strange because Canadians have always smoked a lot of pot. The laws now align more with recreational use with people in Canada.
Question: Can you briefly explain the cultural attitude towards cannabis in your country?
Answer: The cultural attitude in Canada is very accepting of cannabis use. Canadians were long awaiting for the legalisation of marijuana and it was a happy relief for it to become legal because so many Canadians already use it in a recreational manner at home.
Question: Have you heard about Canberra decriminalising recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year?
Answer: No. I didn’t hear that.
Question: What do you think about Australia’s attitude towards cannabis?
Answer: I don’t know very much about Australia but I feel that they share a lot of commonalities with Canadians and they’re kind of known to have a bit of a party lifestyle/culture so I wouldn’t be surprised if cannabis is commonly used.
Question: Do you know/have an idea about the cannabis industry in Australia?
Answer: It depends on the law. In Canada, we were anticipating we would be legalising in October so the weed growing industry started to massively expand and that impacted our economy so it creates a new sector of buyers and growers and a lot of agricultural companies switched from growing tomatoes to cultivating marijuana. And I would imagine that Australia would be very similar to that.
Question: Because Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, do you think Australia will follow Canada’s footsteps with their profitable cannabis industry?
Answer: I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s probably likely that they’ll head in the same direction as Canada.
Question: What do you think if cannabis tourism kicked off in Australia? Would you pay/actively find cannabis tourism if Australia legalises recreational cannabis?
Answer: Not in a sense that I would particularly go to Australia specifically because they legalised cannabis, but if I was a tourist in Australia I would definitely seek out marijuana to enhance an experience in a different country.
Constance Williams
Constance is a medical journalist that critically analyses and reports on how Australia can benefit from the cannabis industry in the future.
Disclaimer: Cannabis Place are not doctors and we recommend consulting health professionals for accurate information. This site may contain information regarding drugs. This medicinal cannabis content is designed for an 18+ audience. Click here for our full disclaimer
