How Canopy Growth Is Expanding Beyond Flower in Australia’s 81-Tonne Cannabis Import Market

Canopy Growth is expanding its Australian medical cannabis portfolio as shifting consumption patterns create opportunities beyond the country’s dominant dried-flower category.

The Canadian producer announced Tuesday that it is introducing its first pastilles and all-in-one cannabis vapes in Australia. It is also adding oils containing CBG and CBN, broadening its softgel range and launching two new flower products under its value-focused Twd. brand.

“Expanding our product offering in established markets like Australia is central to our international medical strategy,” Canopy Growth CEO Luc Mongeau said in the announcement.

The launch builds on a presence established years ago. According to Canopy’s latest annual filing, the company began medical cannabis sales in Australia in May 2019 and supplies the market with raw material from its facility in Kincardine, Ontario.

Its existing Australian offering included oils, softgels and flower sold through Spectrum Therapeutics, alongside medically approved vaporizers manufactured by Canopy subsidiary Storz & Bickel.

The new products broaden that portfolio at a time when Australia remains heavily dependent on imported cannabis—and when patients are increasingly purchasing formats other than flower.

Australia Imported More Than 81 Tonnes in 2025

Australia imported 81,119 kilograms of cannabis in 2025, according to data published by the Australian Office of Drug Control. That was up nearly 5% from 77,406 kilograms in 2024 and more than eleven times the 7,306 kilograms imported in 2021.

Canada remained Australia’s largest foreign supplier, shipping 49,107 kilograms during 2025. That represented approximately 61% of the country’s total imports, although Canadian volumes declined 21% from the previous year.

Thailand emerged as the second-largest supplier, increasing shipments from 1,093 kilograms in 2024 to 20,658 kilograms in 2025. South Africa followed with 3,891 kilograms.

Australia’s domestic industry is growing as well. Local cannabis production increased 30% to 55,337 kilograms in 2025, while exports more than doubled to 6,780 kilograms.

Still, imports exceeded domestic production by almost 26 tonnes. The figures illustrate both the scale of Australian demand and the competition facing Canadian producers seeking a larger position in the market.

Supply is not necessarily translating into uninterrupted growth. Australia held 50,755 kilograms of cannabis inventory at the end of 2025, including 29,366 kilograms of domestically cultivated material and 21,389 kilograms of imported cannabis.

Demand Is Shifting Beyond Flower

The product categories Canopy is entering are growing faster than the broader Australian medical market.

Australia recorded 6.59 million medicinal cannabis units sold during 2024, more than double the 3.20 million sold in 2023, according to the Penington Institute’s Cannabis in Australia 2025 report, which incorporates sales data obtained from the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Sales reached another 3.71 million units in the first half of 2025, virtually unchanged from the second half of 2024. That suggests the market began stabilising after several years of near-exponential expansion.

Beneath that plateau, however, the product mix continued to change.

Dried-flower sales declined from 2.93 million units in the second half of 2024 to 2.72 million during the first half of 2025. Oral-liquid sales also fell, from 454,633 to 421,595 units.

Inhaled-product sales moved in the opposite direction, increasing 51% from 245,273 to 370,390 units. Sales of edible products—which include pastilles, chewable tablets and capsules—more than doubled from 89,491 to 195,540 units.

Canopy is therefore adding its first Australian pastilles and all-in-one vapes precisely as demand expands in both categories.

“Prescribers and patients in Australia are asking for more choice in format and formulation,” said Andrew Bevan, Canopy’s president of medical cannabis.

An Established Route Into a Regulated Market

Medicinal cannabis has been federally legal in Australia since 2016, but adult-use sales remain prohibited.

Most cannabis medicines available to Australian patients are not registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. Instead, doctors generally prescribe them through the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s Special Access Scheme or Authorised Prescriber pathway.

Under the Special Access Scheme Category B, a healthcare professional requests access to a product category and format for a particular patient. The Authorised Prescriber system allows approved practitioners to prescribe specified products to a defined class of patients without seeking separate approval each time.

Canopy said in its annual filing that it holds the registrations and permissions required to import and distribute medical cannabis in Australia. Its EU-GMP-certified Kincardine facility can provide medical cannabis for both Australia and Europe, while its Smiths Falls operation has manufacturing capabilities covering oils and softgel encapsulation.

The company also brings experience navigating Australia’s medical-device rules.

Australia banned non-therapeutic vape imports in 2024, but Storz & Bickel’s registered medical devices remain permitted. Canopy has not said its new 7ACRES and Spectrum vapes share that status. However, the company’s existing regulatory infrastructure gives it an established route into a market with increasingly strict vaporizer rules.

Australia’s Opportunity Comes With Scrutiny

Australia’s medical cannabis system has grown from approximately 18,000 patients in 2019 to more than one million people accessing products by January 2024, according to a 2026 Australian Department of Health consultation paper. By mid-2024, an estimated 80,000 prescriptions were being issued each month.

Those figures do not represent confirmed unique patients because Australia does not maintain a comprehensive patient count and individuals can receive multiple approvals.

Rapid expansion has also prompted scrutiny of telehealth prescribing, product potency and the widespread use of unapproved medicines. Regulators are examining whether a system originally intended to provide exceptional access remains appropriate for a market operating at its current scale.

For Canopy, Australia is one component of a broader international medical strategy encompassing Germany and Poland, with the company expecting to enter the United Kingdom during fiscal 2027.

Canopy reported C$9.6 million in international cannabis revenue in its fiscal first quarter of 2027, up 10% year over year. The company attributed that growth primarily to Poland and does not separately disclose Australian revenue.

Its latest launch nevertheless shows how Canopy intends to pursue international growth: using established import permissions, EU-GMP-certified Canadian supply and an existing medical brand to expand into the Australian market’s fastest-growing product formats.