New dispensaries offer discreet access amid evolving regulations and stigma
A shiny glass-walled dispensary sits in Melbourne’s cosmopolitan South Yarra.
Wood-paneled shelves are lined with pothos plants, palm-sized boxes and protein powder-looking packets. It’s a fully licensed pharmacy, but the casual browser could easily mistake it for a high-end skincare boutique.
This happens all the time. “We see a lot of walk-in patients who don’t know what we are. They often think we’re like Aesop,” says Lisa Nguyen, pharmacist and founder of Astrid Clinic and Dispensary.
Founded in 2021, Astrid was one of the first of a growing number of luxury medical cannabis dispensaries to open on Australia’s busiest shopping streets. An eight-minute walk from Astrid is the “boutique pharmacy” V22 Dispensary. In Sydney’s Enmore, High St, a mustard yellow shop, has the feel of a record store; 500 meters up the road in Newtown is the True Green Dispensary; here you can only buy things like frankincense, hemp seed oil, or skincare made from tallow—unless you have a script for something stronger.
It’s a far cry from the traditional pharmacy run by a grumpy man in a white coat, or the harsh fluorescent lights and raw concrete floors of the Chemist’s Warehouse.
The stylish and inviting new boutiques are staffed by registered pharmacists and appeal to 2.4 million people Australians turning to cannabis legally, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare latest household survey on drug use. More than one in 10 Australians (11.6 per cent) consumed a total of 7.4 million units According to the Penington Institute, medical cannabis products last year Cannabis in Australia 2025 report. Australians by 2023 to guess According to market research firm IMARC Group, $1.3 billion will be spent on medical marijuana.
Five years after opening Astrid, Nguyen still gets DMs from people looking for advice on how to open a high-end ‘specialty pharmacy’ of their own. “A lot of people are starting to do this now,” he says.
These dispensaries can seem both attractive and mysterious. It’s not immediately obvious what they’re distributing: You won’t find references to weed, marijuana, weed or even marijuana. Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) prohibitions Advertising for any prescription-only drug, including marijuana, forces dispensaries to market their services using vague phrases like “alternative medicine,” “natural treatments,” and “holistic health.”
The ban was designed to protect the doctor-patient relationship over commercial interests, where advertising and marketing could increase consumers’ demand for medicines that were not suitable for them or were too expensive.
“If you are a business promoting therapeutic services, you need to ensure that you are not promoting medical cannabis as well as promoting your services,” the TGA said. states.
Fear of regulatory scrutiny has forced specialty dispensaries to hide in plain sight. “It’s very, very secretive. There’s not even a picture of the marijuana plant because you can’t advertise it,” Nguyen says.
“The social stigma around marijuana has greatly diminished. That doesn’t mean it’s gone,” he added. “The industry is moving very quickly in terms of products. There are a lot more patients now, a lot of products, but the policy is slow.”
in the weeds
For the uninitiated, medical marijuana dispensaries can create confusion because they don’t neatly fall into two categories that people may more intuitively grasp: a traditional dispensary or a recreational weed store you might walk into in San Francisco or Amsterdam.
None of the openly displayed products contain marijuana. As with any prescription drug, you must provide a prescription to your pharmacist.
About 80 per cent of Australia’s 6000 community pharmacies have dispensed medical cannabis at least once, but many doctors are hesitant to prescribe cannabis. Most products are not officially registered with the TGA.
“We’ve seen fewer GPs, nurse practitioners and pharmacists prescribing medical cannabis. I suspect physical services are a way to reach patients,” says John Ryan, chief executive of the public health think tank Penington Institute.
“There are a lot of casual access points, telehealth access points. I think those services are more geared towards creating a niche within the ecosystem of prescribers.”
The welcoming atmosphere of a health and wellness center can turn audience curiosity into conversation and break down ongoing taboos surrounding cannabis. They can also attract new customers.
“[The dispensary] it makes it real, it makes it accessible. There are a lot of online businesses that don’t look real,” says Nguyen.
“A lot of Astrid’s love comes from people coming in and knowing all of our pharmacists and doctors by name. We know their backgrounds. It’s a community.” Incidental conversations between other patients can lead to more. “We even saw people starting to come out.”
The Penington Institute’s Ryan says medical marijuana patients may be uncomfortable visiting a regular chemist because of the inherent stigma associated with marijuana.
“From a patient journey perspective, you can imagine that getting that calming health spa vibe likely relieved their internalized anxiety about medical marijuana,” he says.
This new wave of dispensaries in Australia are taking design cues from more mature overseas markets such as the US. “This was a complete rebrand, moving from the street to the clinic in a legal environment,” says social impact investor Kyah Bell.
But he added that most of these clinics use the same pricing models for initial counseling, follow-up counseling and product pricing.
Health and wellness has been considered an economic ‘megatrend’ for years. Chemist Warehouse’s $32 billion backdoor turned its pharmacist founders into billionaires. More broadly, Australians’ rapid adoption of Mounjaro and Wegovy weight loss pills has highlighted just how much money there is to be made in the healthcare industry. Many of Australia’s largest cannabis businesses operate online via video calls with doctors and delivery directly from the pharmacy.
But this has opened a path for private medical marijuana dispensaries to capture their own share of the market with unique brands and inviting stores.
“Competition has a lot to do with design because everyone is trying to have a piece of that market,” Bell says. “I rarely see other GP clinics advertising in the same way as cannabis clinics.”
Not quite legal
Australia’s unique patchwork of rules around cannabis consumption and advertising has created a reluctance among clinics and dispensaries to stand out for fear of falling foul of the rules. High St and True Green Dispensary in Sydney declined to be interviewed when contacted by this imprint.
Despite medical cannabis being legalized a decade ago, recreational use is still a crime everywhere in Australia except the ACT. Criminal suppliers make more than $5 billion a year from the illicit market, according to the Penington Institute, and billions of dollars spent on enforcing “outdated and inefficient” criminalization laws have not harmed supply or use. Cannabis in Australia 2025 report.
“At best, we would have a regulated market for adult-use marijuana concurrent with medical marijuana for people with real health problems that need treatment,” Ryan says.
“It’s a very bumpy, bumpy way to approach the regulation of this substance.”
Reports of those gaming the system have been widely publicized: The proliferating telehealth industry has sparked concerns about unsafe practices, following this imprint that revealed a single doctor wrote 72,000 prescriptions for 10,000 patients over two years. Robyn Langham, chief medical adviser at the Therapeutic Goods Administration, expressed concern about the “misuse” of medical prescriptions for recreational use.
“Most doctors act very responsibly, but some don’t and they don’t necessarily pursue it,” Ryan says. “They are bringing the entire industry into disrepute.”
Many of Nguyen’s patients are dealing with complex pain issues, such as endometriosis patients who also experience insomnia or anxiety.
Having both the clinic and the dispensary in the same location means that healthcare professionals and pharmacists can accompany the patient throughout the entire process. “We have all the experience,” he says.
Some people will say that marijuana isn’t for them, but most interactions are educational.
“Most of them are, ‘My mom has arthritis. Do you think it would help?’ he says. “This is a very common question.”
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers big stories, exclusive news and expert insights. Sign up to receive it every weekday morning.
Jessica Yun is a business reporter covering retail and food for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: excitement or email.
