The New Daily is proud to announce that one of its journalists this week won a prestigious Walkley Award for a series of stories examining the medicinal cannabis market.

Christiane Barro won the Walkley Award for Student Journalist of the Year for a series of pieces published in The New Daily in 2017 and 2018.

Christiane’s achievement is all the more impressive for the fact that she won the same award in 2017.

Christiane spent six months researching the stories which exposed shonky medicinal cannabis sellers preying on sick and vulnerable people.

The first story shone a light on the fake and toxic products being manufactured in backyard laboratories across Australia, while the second, detailed some of the contaminants in medicinal cannabis sold in Australia.

READ CHRISTIANE’S SERIES HERE

The cannabis oil ‘healers’ preying on the sick and dying

Contaminants detected in unlicensed cannabis oil products

Senator demands overhaul of medicinal cannabis market

Christiane used scientific testing at a top Australian university, monitored various online forums and conducted countless hours of interviews with victims and sellers. The result was a body of work that exposed a hitherto ignored issue and prompted real-world action and discussion.

Some of the people she wrote about (and others that were spoken to during research) have been charged with allegedly possessing and manufacturing unlicensed cannabis products.

Politicians and lobby groups were also moved to action, encouraging reputable sellers and regulating to prevent the dodgy ones.

Christiane compiled the series while working with us through 2017 as a weekend digital producer and completing her studies at Monash University.

Her commitment to the story was evident to those of us who worked on it with her. And it was her tenacity on this series that made her such an obvious candidate for our newsroom.

Congratulations, Christiane!