The federal government says patients will soon be able to access medicinal marijuana within days of receiving a prescription from their doctor.
Health Minister Greg Hunt says a number of companies will now be allowed to import the drug to Australia, creating a regular supply for those with profound conditions or palliative care needs.
"It's about the compassionate use of a medicine, prescribed through the Therapeutic Goods Administration process and made available only by doctors. But our task, whilst we are waiting for domestic supplies to come on board, is for the first time in history to provide an import process which will allow us to have an interim national supply. I believe it's the right thing to do and it's the decent thing to do."
Before, patients needed to get individual permits for each shipment from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which could take months.
Mr Hunt says once the changes come into effect in the next eight weeks, patients will be able to get their hands on treatment shortly after their doctors prescribe it.
"Once the doctors have made a decision - and it's always a decision for the doctors - the patients will be able to get rapid access within a matter of days. At the moment there is a legal regime which allows access, but practically there's not the supply available."
SBS News spoke with several patients currently treating themselves with marijuana they obtain illegally from local suppliers.
Nicole Cowles has an 11-year-old daughter with severe epilepsy, and says 90 per cent of her seizures stopped when she began medicinal marijuana treatment three years ago.
Ms Cowles sources the product from a local supplier and creates the medical tinctures in her own kitchen.
"I don't believe that myself, or any other parent, should be forced to make their child's medication. There (are) two sides to that. There's part of me that loves being able to create something that's natural and good for my child and has saved her life, but there's a much bigger part of me that says I shouldn't be put into that decision. I'm already under enough stress having a disabled child, I shouldn't be forced to fly under the radar and make my own products, so I don't think that's a good enough answer."
Nicole Cowles says she's a part of a massive network of Australians who share medicinal cannabis with one another.
She says Australia should move to a less restrictive system like that in some parts of the United States, with the drug sold in herbal dispensaries.
She says many in the community saw Mr Hunt's announcement as underwhelming.
"Realistically, what I produce in my kitchen I believe is probably 100 times better than anything the government is proposing to offer me and there's no way that I would go on to a system where I pay for a product that I don't believe has any long-term benefits when I already have a far superior product that I produce myself at home."
Mr Hunt says the TGA and the federal Health Department's Office of Drug Control are in conversations with several companies about imports.
The aim is to temporarily supply the Australian market with imported products while local marijuana growers ramp up production.
But those local companies have been hamstrung by tight regulations.
Last week the drug control office issued Australia's first licence for private cultivation, granting the company Cannoperations the right to grow the marijuana plant for research purposes.
The chief executive of the Australian Cannabis Corporation, Ben Fitzsimons, says his company is working with foreign partners to import American cannabis.
But he says Australian companies are keen to produce the drug here.
"We're on the ground running already, but that still doesn't take us away from our main goal of establishing the industry in Australia, and then hopefully being allowed to export our products that we create here to the world as well. It's just a global market, it's a global product now, and just like wine and any other industry you can think of that Australia gets involved with, this will be one of those industries as well."
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