Jane (not her real name) has been using cannabis as a pain management technique for years, but she admits sometimes her home remedies are more guesswork than science.
The former public servant, aged in her 40s, suffers from endometriosis, which has caused her excruciating pain for decades.
"It would feel like my stomach was going to rip itself out, I'd just feel pain right through my body," she said.
"I had a job in the public service and actually had to leave because I was sick so often.
"I just felt like crap every day."
Eventually Jane heard of others having success with using medicinal cannabis to treat acute illnesses, so decided to try it herself.
From there, she said her world changed, but accessing the precious pain relief had its own setbacks.
TGA-approved medicinal cannabis is chemically consistent – just like any other medicine from paracetamol to penicillin – but the high regulations also result in an increased cost of prescriptions for medicinal cannabis, which can run into hundreds of dollars per month.
"There are very few doctors prescribing it, so you sort of have to find other avenues if you want to use it," Jane said.
She said the illicit 'green market' – supplying cannabis products for medicinal purposes – was much cheaper.
"Depending on how much I use, it can be half the price," Jane said.
In an effort to further reduce costs, Jane has now also turned to growing her own cannabis in her backyard, which she makes into homemade oils, pastes and balms to control her pain and help her manage her mental health.
But as for how much to take, how, and when, that remains as much guesswork as science.
"Some varieties work, some don't do anything," she said.
"I'm always mixing them and playing around with it, changing the dose.
"So, so many times I've greened out [become accidentally stoned from medicinal cannabis].
"It's like, 'oh gosh, I've had a little bit too much'."
'A public health prerogative'
Since growing your own cannabis for personal use was decriminalised in the ACT at the start of 2020, there have been calls by health professionals to examine which varieties of plants are being grown and how Canberrans are using them.
There are 700 or so different strains of plant to choose from, all with varying levels of THC (the compound that gives you a high) and CBD (the compound most commonly prescribed in an oil), plus cannanaboins, therpins and literally hundreds of other chemicals.
And when variables like rainfall, sunshine, soil quality, fertilisers, and varying experiences of growers are taken into account, you can have millions of possible outcomes.
David Caldicott is the clinical leader of Pill Testing Australia – the group that established pill testing at festivals in Canberra and this year led the way for the opening of Australia's first fixed-site drug-testing clinic in the city.
He thinks Canberra should expand its drug-testing regime to include the cannabis being grown in the capital.
Dr Caldicott agrees this is a factor for people choosing to grow their own.
"There's a public health prerogative here," Dr Caldicott said.
"There is the risk of not knowing if something is dangerous for you, whether or not it contains a contaminant that is potentially harmful to your health."
But Dr Caldicott said there was also the opportunity for "bio-prospecting" for new strains and new variants of cannabinoids.
"The large medicinal cannabis companies are investing millions looking for new strains that might contain new plant-based chemicals that might have extraordinary effects," he said.
"There's a body of expertise in the ACT that could do this all quite easily. In the same way that it is providing pill testing."
Please take a sample, to Sydney
Last month, Sydney University announced a new study to test Canberra's cannabis.
The university's Lambert Institute is asking people who legally cultivate cannabis in Canberra to anonymously send samples to their lab.
From the samples, scientists will then begin to map the chemical makeup of around 200 crops, establishing the beginnings of a database of the cannabis being grown in the national capital.
And Professor McGregor said that information would be sent back to the grower who provided the sample in Canberra.
"I mean, from the cultivator's perspective, they have no real access to information around the content of their cannabis," Professor Iain McGregor, the principal research fellow at the Lambert Institute said.
"If it's transformational in terms of their pain, their anxiety, their epilepsy, why wouldn't they want to know what's in there?"
Professor McGregor said if the study of samples from Canberra was successful, and provided useful information to the community, then it could set the groundwork for a central cannabis-testing facility.
It is an idea Dr Caldicott backs, having raised it in the years leading up to the law changes in Canberra. And he has thought potential models through.
"I think you would probably have to have a system which would be initially anonymous, maybe a blockchain system," he said.
"People would need to feel that their anonymity is protected and that they personally are involved in the outcomes, not just the results, but the outcomes of these analyses."
But Dr Caldicott said there was no good reason that Canberra could not be the host city for that cannabis testing itself.
In a statement, the ACT government said it was open to discussing the establishment of such a service by a third-party provider "on a commercial or not-for-profit basis", though had no current plans to expand or alter the government-backed pill and drug testing centre, CanTEST.
"The ACT government is not considering establishing or funding a cannabis testing facility or service in the ACT and has not been approached to do so," it said.
"We would be happy to engage on technical and legal issues should a third-party provider wish to discuss establishing such a service on a commercial or not-for-profit basis.
"The government will continue to work with researchers, healthcare providers and community organisations to ensure we are funding and delivering services that benefit the community and deliver better health outcomes for ACT residents."
For Jane, the idea of being able to test her backyard cannabis locally has huge appeal.
"I want to know what's in the strain I grow, how much CBD, THC and cannabinoids it has, and how that will work with what I get on the green market," she said.
"Because of the trial and error growing different plants, the chemical makeup over the years, how long I've had it."
But she says, in the meantime, she will send her samples to the Sydney study.
"It will make it easier to dose for sure," she said.
