Cannabis Industry Awards (Australia)
A community-and-business awards programme founded by Benjamin Jesse, announced in Sydney in May 2019 as Australia's first industry awards for cannabis.
- 77results on record
- 2019–2022years in our data
- 4editions
- 0matched to strains
- Australialatest location
01Beginnings
The Australian Cannabis Industry Awards were founded by Benjamin Jesse, who is introduced as the founder in a Ganjapreneur podcast interview1. The clearest dated marker of their start is a Sydney-datelined Canna Newswire press release of 28 May 20192. The release presented the event as the first time Australia would have industry awards for cannabis2.
The organisers gave a simple reason. They were concerned that activists' long years of effort, and the persecution they had faced, would end up overshadowed by big business2. In the podcast Jesse adds that launching the awards early in the Australian industry's life felt important to him1. For the first round, nominations from community and business groups were accepted until the end of May 20192.
02The story so far
By the time of the Ganjapreneur interview, the host could say the awards had already held their inaugural event that year1. The excerpt does not give a year or date for that event, so this page does not either. The release describes the structure: the awards are split into a community half and a business half, so that both companies and activists are recognised2.
According to the release, there are 42 award categories each year, all open to everyone2. The awards say they cover the medical, recreational and ancillary sectors of the industry2. Anything about later programmes, such as how many editions have run, is not documented in the sources we hold.
03Culture and community
The prize names give the awards their flavour. On the community side, Jesse mentions activist of the year, lifetime achievement, artist, stigma, Women of Weed and education awards1. On the business side he lists innovation, business of the year, packaging of the year, doctor of the year and column writer of the year, plus the Green Award, a sustainability prize1.
Among the reform groups Jesse names is the HEMP Party, which he expands as Help End Marijuana Prohibition1. The release draws a comparison with wine and beer, suggesting cannabis could develop a similarly thriving public culture2. Jesse calls himself a passionate person and describes starting the awards as something of a no-brainer1. The awards list Facebook and Instagram accounts under the cannawards name2.
04Where things stand now
Current status is not documented. The most recent dated source is the 28 May 2019 press release2, and neither source says how many editions have been held, when the latest one took place, or whether the awards are still running. Rather than guess, we leave the question open: the organisers would need to confirm. The social media accounts named above are the obvious places to look for anything newer, though this page cannot vouch for what they contain.
05What's next
No announced plans for future editions appear in the sources, so none are documented here. The only forward-looking line in the 2019 release is a prediction it repeats: that Australia's cannabis industry will one day be twice the size of its beer industry2. That is a forecast about the wider sector, not a plan for the awards, and it should be read as the release's own optimism rather than an established fact.
The results, in our data
CannaLib holds 77 results from this cup across 4 years (2019 to 2022), 0 of them matched to a strain in the catalogue.
Editions on record
- 2019 · Australia
- 2020 · Australia
- 2021 · Australia
Sources
- Benjamin Jesse: Celebrating Australia's Cannabis Industry - Ganjapreneur
- Australia's First Cannabis Awards - Terpenes and Testing Magazine
Written from the sources above and checked on 2026-10-29. Spot an error? Tell us on the contact page.