How to buy medical cannabis in Toowoomba
A pair of budding Toowoomba businessmen have opened the city’s first dedicated medical cannabis shop ‘420 Superstore’ and business is booming with 100 people signing up for the green leafy care packages each week.

A pair of budding Toowoomba businessmen have opened the city’s first dedicated medical cannabis shop. Video: Kevin Farmer

Business is booming at Toowoomba’s newest medical cannabis retailer with more than 300 patients signed up within a month of opening.

The 420 Superstore is owned by Darling Downs entrepreneurs Gavin Bagnall and John Nicholson.

They said demand for medical cannabis came from a broad cross-section of society – from little old ladies with arthritis to tradesmen with work injuries and people living with anxiety and depression.

“We a brand ambassadors for Canwell which is one of the biggest medical cannabis clinics in Australia,” Mr Bagnall said.

“We don’t go into a patient’s personal problems, instead we are here to help you get directions from your doctors.”

Potential patients who visit the store are directed to consultation with a GP.

If they qualify for a prescription then the partners can help patients source dried cannabis flowers, vaporisers, paraphernalia, oils and tinctures.

After a patient receives a script their medicine is shipped express post from a Brisbane warehouse.

A study by the University of Sydney analysed the drug’s medicinal prescriptions issued from 2016, when it was legalised to late 2021.

It found about 250,000 scripts for medicinal cannabis had been approved for Australians since 2016, with 51 per cent of those written for Queensland.

Part of the growth in sales can be attributed to changes to the Therapeutic Good Administration made to medical cannabis in November 2021.

It reduced the administrative burden for prescribers who decide if a patient was suitable for medicinal cannabis, effectively opening it up to a wider range of illnesses and greater flexibility for substituting brands.

Importantly, it opened up the range of illnesses that medical cannabis could treat to include anxiety, insomnia, arthritis pain, back and neck pain and nerve pain.

“The TGA had mainly concentrated on cancer patients and people with chronic illnesses but now that there is a lot more information trickling in from other places like America,” Mr Bagnall said.

“Some of the specialist doctors are booked up four to six weeks in advance.”

According to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 11.7 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over had used cannabis in 2019.

Of those 6.8 per cent said they used it only for medical purposes and 16.3 per cent said they sometimes used it for medical purposes and sometimes for other reasons

This equates to 2.7 per cent of the total Australian population, or about 600,000 people, using cannabis for medical purposes.

It is a big market that is shared between the legal retailers like the 420 Superstore and illicit dealers but that too is changing.

“The police can bust all the dealers they want, but the customers are just going to go the next dealer,” Mr Bagnall said

“By converting patients to medicinal cannabis we are taking customers away from the criminal market

“Canwell owns a few plantations so it can tackle street prices and it is working with importers.

“We have specials that slay street prices.”

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