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

What the law actually says

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 (Vic), Authorised Version No. 141, incorporating amendments as at 1 July 2025; and the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Regulations 2017 (Vic), Authorised Version No. 021, as at 1 July 2026.

The offence. s 72B of the Act: “A person who, without being authorized by or licensed under this Act or the regulations to do so, cultivates or attempts to cultivate a narcotic plant is guilty of an indictable offence”. Cannabis is a narcotic plant — s 70(1) defines that term by reference to Part 2 of Schedule Eleven, which lists Cannabis L. Larger quantities are separate and much graver offences: s 72A at a commercial quantity, s 72 at a large commercial quantity.

Everything turns on the phrase “authorized by or licensed under this Act or the regulations”, which appears in the cultivation offence and, word for word, in the possession offence at s 73(1). The same phrase leads to two different answers, and the reason is in the Regulations.

What a patient is authorised to do. Regulation 7(1), Table item 6: a person for whom a Schedule 8 poison is supplied by a registered medical practitioner, nurse practitioner, pharmacist or other listed practitioner in accordance with the Act and the Regulations is authorised to obtain or possess “that Schedule 8 poison to the extent and for the purpose for which it is supplied”. That is the authority a prescription gives you, and it is an authority about a supplied medicine.

What the Regulations say about growing. Part 15 contains the only cultivation authority, and its heading is the answer. Regulation 116, Authority to cultivate narcotic plants for non-therapeutic uses: “For the purposes of section 72 of the Act, the Secretary may, in the Secretary's discretion, authorise in writing a fit and proper person to cultivate a narcotic plant as defined in section 70 of the Act for a use other than a therapeutic use.”

A patient growing their own medicine is growing it for a therapeutic use, which is the one purpose reg 116 excludes on its face. The Act itself contains no patient cultivation provision either: the words medicinal cannabis appear seven times in the whole Act, all of them in Part VC about vaporisers and water pipes, plus the amendment history. The only cultivation authority in the Act proper is Part IVA, for low-THC hemp under an authority issued by the Secretary — an agricultural scheme, not a patient one.

Commonwealth licensing under the Narcotic Drugs Act 1967 is a commercial scheme administered by the Office of Drug Control and is likewise not a patient pathway.

What happens if it goes wrong

Maximum penalties, read off the Act as at 1 July 2025:

• s 72B(a), where the court is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the cultivation was not for any purpose related to trafficking: level 8 imprisonment (1 year maximum) or a penalty of not more than 20 penalty units, or both.
• s 72B(b), in any other case: level 4 imprisonment (15 years maximum).
• s 72A, at a commercial quantity — for cannabis, 25 kg or 100 plants (Schedule Eleven, Part 2): level 2 imprisonment (25 years maximum).
• s 72, at a large commercial quantity — 250 kg or 1 000 plants: level 1 imprisonment (life), and in addition a penalty of not more than 5 000 penalty units.

The traffickable quantity for cannabis is 250 g or 10 plants, which is what moves a case out of the small end of s 72B. The dollar value of a penalty unit is not in this Act — it is fixed under the Monetary Units Act 2004 (Vic) and rises each financial year, so read it off the current figure rather than off this page.