The last two decades has seen a huge shift in the discourse regarding hemp and cannabis within Australia. With an ever-growing push to legalise the plant for medicinal, industrial, and recreational purposes, Brisbane will host its first Hemp, Health & Innovation (HHI) Expo in October.
With almost a century of misinformation and 'reefer madness' surrounding the plant, it's high time Australia had a serious discussion around the potential benefits of increasing public access to the plant.
The HHI Expo has seen more than 30,000 people (the last three years) attend events in Sydney and Melbourne, and is now on its way to Brisbane for the first time.
From 12-13 October, the HHI Expo will showcase new technologies and innovations made out of, or containing hemp, including carbon-negative building materials, beauty products, vapes, clothing, textiles, and beverages.
Alongside the exhibition, there will also be a Cannabis Symposium, with several prolific members of the legalisation movement, including doctors, pharmacists, entrepreneurs, academics, and activists giving keynote speeches and holding Q&A sessions.
Speakers include Dr. Matau Jansen from Cannabis Doctors Australia, pharmacist and Australia’s first legal cannabis importer Paul Mavor, and CEO of Epilepsy Action Australia Carol Ireland.
The HHI Expo offers attendants the opportunity to have one-on-one, fifteen-minute appointments to determine their eligibility for approval for medicinal cannabis by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
There will also be the opportunity to taste a wide range of hemp-based foods that have exploded onto the scene since the hemp seed was legalised for human consumption in 2017.
Foods on offer include street food, hemp ice cream, condiments, supplements, smoothies, hemp kombucha, and baked goods – a veritable smorgasbord of hemp-related foods.
But it's not just humans who stand to benefit from the HHI Expo. A number of exhibits will be on hand to showcase how pets' quality of life can be increased through the use of hemp to ease the pain of diseases, arthritis and cancer.
As if helping pets, eating food and learning about the future of the industry wasn't reason enough to explore the HHI Expo, a wide range of natural beauty and hemp products on offer for men and women including hemp body oils, lip balms, soaps, creams, moisturisers, and perfume will be on display.
