On 14 November 2019, the Senate referred an inquiry into the current barriers to patient access to medicinal cannabis in Australia to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 26 March 2020.

Further detail about the scope of the inquiry is provided in the terms of reference.

Making a submission

Submissions were requested by 17 January 2020. The reporting date was 12 February 2020. On 2 December 2019, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting until 26 February 2020. On 13 February 2020, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting until 26 March 2020.

If you would like to make a submission, you may find it helpful to look at the guide for preparing a submission. It includes suggestions on what to include in a submission, a check list, and information about what happens to your submission once it has been received by the committee.

Do you have questions about how to make a submission?

If you require any special arrangements to enable you to make a submission to the inquiry, please contact the secretariat. You can also contact the secretariat if you have questions about the inquiry or need more time to write your submission.

Submissions can be public (published on the internet) or confidential (only read by the committee)

The committee can receive submissions as public documents—which are published on the committee webpage. If your submission is published, the information in it, including your name can be searched for on the internet. If you do not want your name to be available with your submission on the internet, you can ask for your name to be withheld.

If you do not want your submission to be publicly available, you can ask the committee to keep your submission confidential – please include the word confidential on the front of your submission as well as a reason for your request. Confidential submissions can only be read by members of the committee and secretariat staff.