Growing a couple of plants in the back yard is producing a dangerous drug in Queensland. It is not a possession charge with a different name, and the maximums are among the highest in the Drugs Misuse Act.

The word producing also covers a great deal more than growing, which is where people who never planted anything end up charged with it.

What producing actually covers

Legal Aid Queensland sets out the definition. It covers preparing, manufacturing, cultivating, packaging or producing. It also covers offering to do any of those things. And it covers doing, or offering to do, any act preparatory to, in furtherance of, or for the purpose of any of them.

Three parts of that catch people who thought they were on the edges of a situation.

Packaging. Dividing something up and bagging it can fall inside producing, quite apart from any supply allegation.

Preparatory acts. You do not have to have finished anything, or even started the main activity, if what you did was preparatory to it or in furtherance of it.

Offering. An offer to do any of it can be enough on its own.

Watering somebody else's plants is enough

This is the point worth reading twice.

Legal Aid Queensland's material describes cultivation as requiring some positive act, such as watering the plants, even where another person planted them.

So the argument that the crop belongs to a housemate, or a partner, or the person who was staying in the shed, does not answer the charge if you were the one keeping it alive while they were away. Helping is participating.

The span is wide at both ends too. Legal Aid Queensland describes cultivation as running from the first step that might be taken to grow a plant from the seed itself all the way through to harvesting, and as extending to ancillary activities including drying and stacking.

Drying is the one that surprises people most. Somebody who had nothing to do with the growing, and who hung the plants in a shed afterwards, is not outside this offence.

The maximums, and what they are

Legal Aid Queensland records producing a dangerous drug as carrying up to 25 years where it is a schedule 1 drug, and up to 20 years where it is a schedule 2 drug. Cannabis is a schedule 2 drug.

Those are ceilings for the very worst version of the offence committed by the very worst offender. A few plants in a back yard is nowhere near the top of that range, and courts sentence on what actually happened. Nobody can tell you what your matter will produce, and you should be careful of anyone who offers to.

Where the Magistrates Court stops

This is the practical line, and for cannabis matters it is a specific one.

Legal Aid Queensland describes the general position that offences carrying up to 15 years can be dealt with summarily by a magistrate, with a ceiling of 3 years on what the magistrate can impose, and that producing a schedule 2 drug below the relevant quantity threshold can be dealt with that way.

For cannabis cultivation it identifies a hard limit: the matter cannot be dealt with summarily where the aggregate weight of the plants reaches 500 grams or the number of plants exceeds 100.

Aggregate weight is the phrase to notice. It is not the weight of the usable material. A small number of large plants can reach a threshold that people assume applies only to a commercial operation.

The other charges that arrive with it

A production matter is rarely one charge.

Legal Aid Queensland describes possessing a thing for use in connection with a drug crime, or that has been used for one, as carrying up to 15 years. Lights, tents, timers, fans, hydroponic equipment and nutrients tend to land here.

There is a separate offence again for publishing or possessing documents containing instructions for producing a dangerous drug, carrying up to 25 years for a schedule 1 drug and 20 for a schedule 2 drug. A printed guide, or a saved file, is capable of being charged.

And where you are the occupier or concerned in the management or control of a place and you permit it to be used for a drug crime, Legal Aid Queensland describes a further offence carrying up to 20 years. It requires knowledge, and suspicion alone is not enough, though knowledge can be inferred where a person shuts their eyes to suspicious circumstances.

So the landlord question, and the housemate question, are real questions in these matters rather than side issues.

What actually drives the penalty

The figures above do not tell you much about a real case. What moves a sentence within the range is more specific.

Scale. Plant numbers, aggregate weight, and the size of any setup.

Whether a commercial purpose is alleged. This changes the court as well as the seriousness, and it is the single most consequential allegation on a charge sheet in this area.

What the setup shows. A couple of plants in a garden bed and a purpose built room with lighting, ventilation and timers are read very differently, regardless of yield.

Your role. Someone who built and ran an operation and someone who watered it for a fortnight are not in the same position, though both may be charged with producing.

Your history and what you have done since, which is material a court can act on if there is evidence of it.

Your plea, and when you entered it. Under the Penalties and Sentences Act a court must take a guilty plea into account and may reduce the sentence, and Legal Aid Queensland notes that a court which does not reduce it has to say so in open court with reasons.

Whether a conviction is recorded, which is a separate decision from the penalty and for many people the one that matters most.

None of that is a prediction. It is the list of things worth working on before your court date.

What to do this week

Get the QP9 and read exactly what has been charged, including plant numbers and weights, because those figures decide which court you are in.

Do not explain your role to anyone. Describing yourself as the one who looked after it is an admission of the element that matters.

Do not discuss it with anyone else charged.

And start gathering the material about what a conviction would cost you, because it takes time to collect.

This article is current as at August 2026. Queensland drug law is changing, so check the current position rather than relying on an article.

If you have been charged in Cairns

The questions that matter in a production matter are usually about scale, role and whether a commercial purpose can actually be made out. Those are arguable, they are fact specific, and they decide which court you end up in.

We act in drug offences matters in Cairns and across Far North Queensland. If you have been charged with producing, or with helping somebody else produce, those questions are worth working through before your first mention.

If you have been charged with producing or growing drugs in Cairns, or with helping someone else, speak with us before your first mention.