Can I grow my own if I have a prescription in Tasmania?

What the law actually says

Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 (Tas), No. 94 of 2001, authorised version as at 16 November 2022.

The offence. s 22: “A person must not cultivate a controlled plant.” Cannabis is a controlled plant — s 3 defines the term by reference to Part 3 of Schedule 1, whose first five items are cannabis in its various forms.

What “cultivate” covers. The definition in s 3 is unusually wide and includes “guard or conceal a plant against discovery or interference, whether by humans or natural predators” as well as planting, nurturing, tending, growing and harvesting. Concealing a plant is cultivating it.

The carve-out, and where it sends you. s 4: “Nothing in this Act affects any provision made by or under the Poisons Act 1971 or the Industrial Hemp Act 2015 or renders unlawful anything done in accordance with any such provision.” That is the whole of the Act's interface with the medicines legislation, and it is the provision to follow.

Following it there answers the question twice over. The Poisons Act 1971 (Tas) does not merely fail to authorise growing — it prohibits it in its own right, in Part V, whose Division 2 heading reads “Restrictions on the importation, making, refining, preparation, sale, supply, possession, cultivation, and use of narcotics and prohibited plants”.

s 52(1): “A person shall not, except under and in accordance with a licence granted… by a responsible licensing authority under this Part…, grow a prohibited plant.” Cannabis is one: s 3 defines prohibited plant as “(a) any alkaloid poppy; (b) coca leaves; (c) Indian hemp” and others declared by the Minister, and Indian hemp as “any plant or part of a plant of the genus cannabis”.

What “grow” covers is defined just as widely as cultivate is in the Misuse of Drugs Act: “(a) plant a seed, seedling or cutting; (b) graft, divide or transplant a plant; (c) nurture, tend, grow, cultivate or harvest a plant”.

What the Poisons Act does authorise a patient to do. s 48(2)(b): nothing in the possession offence prohibits “the possession by a person of a raw narcotic or narcotic substance supplied by a medical practitioner, dentist, pharmacist, authorised health professional or veterinary surgeon to him or for some person who is a member of his family or his household or of whom he has the care, custody, or control”.

There it is again: an exemption for a substance supplied to you. A plant you grew was not supplied to you by a practitioner. The Northern Territory (s 42), Western Australia (s 7(3)) and Queensland (s 34(2) of its Medicines and Poisons Act 2019) all reach the same result through the same drafting, and Tasmania makes it four.

And the separate plant-possession offence has no patient limb at all. s 49(1) prohibits possessing a prohibited plant or any part of one unless the person is a licensed manufacturing chemist, the holder of a licence under Part V authorising them to grow the plant, or someone transporting it between the two under contract. A prescription is not on that list.

The only grow licences Part V contains are for poppies — a poppy research licence under s 54 and a poppy grower's licence under s 54D, with their own board and their own conditions. It is an agricultural and research scheme, and it is the same shape as Victoria's reg 116, which is expressly for non-therapeutic uses.

Where it becomes the graver offence. The trafficable quantity for Cannabis (as individual plants) is 20 plants (Schedule 1, Part 3, item 2). Under s 22A(2) and s 7(2), cultivating a trafficable quantity raises a presumption that you intended to sell, which you then have to displace on the balance of probabilities.

What happens if it goes wrong

Maximum penalties. Two Acts apply and they are close to identical in weight.

Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 (Tas), as at 16 November 2022:

• s 22, cultivating a controlled plant (a summary offence under s 18): a fine not exceeding 50 penalty units, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.
• s 22A, cultivating with the intention that it be sold, or believing someone else intends to sell it: 100 penalty units, or 4 years.
• s 7, the indictable form of the same conduct: imprisonment for a term not exceeding 21 years.

Poisons Act 1971 (Tas), as current at 16 February 2026:

• s 52(1), growing a prohibited plant without a licence: a fine not exceeding 50 penalty units, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years, or both. s 52(2) gives a defence to a person who proves they did not know and had no means of knowing the plant was a prohibited plant — which is no help to somebody who planted it deliberately.
• s 49(1), possessing a prohibited plant outside the licensed chain: the same 50 penalty units or 2 years, or both.

The dollar value of a Tasmanian penalty unit is not in either Act. It is set under the Penalty Units and Other Penalties Act 1987 (Tas) and is adjusted, so read the current figure rather than converting from this page.