Ministry of Health New Zealand

Licence to cultivate a prohibited plant

Currently, licences for cannabis can only be issued under the Misuse of Drugs Act to cultivate or extract cannabis for medical or scientific research, including clinical trials. Growing for any other purpose, including commercial cultivation, is not yet permitted.

Activities that can be allowed:

• growing cannabis
• harvesting cannabis
• drying cannabis
• storing cannabis
• possessing cannabis and its seed
• sale or supply of cannabis plant material or seed to an appropriately licensed facility.

One licence per cultivation site is required.

Licence to deal in controlled drugs

Activities that can be allowed:

• Possessing cannabis, cannabis seed or a cannabis product
• Storing cannabis, cannabis seed or a cannabis product
• Extracting/processing cannabis and its seed (including hulling seeds)
• Manufacturing products from cannabis, cannabis extracts or cannabis seed (for scientific research only)
• Selling/distributing cannabis, cannabis seed or a cannabis product.

• Licence to manufacture medicines

  Issued under the Medicines Act 1981

  Activities that can be allowed:

  • Manufacturing medicinal cannabis products or active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for therapeutic use (currently only allowed to be manufactured for clinical trials).

  Note that a licence to deal in controlled drugs is also required to enable a manufacturer to sell or distribute the medicinal cannabis products or active pharmaceutical ingredients.