What the medicine schedules mean
In Australia, medicines and chemicals are sorted into numbered schedules that control how freely they can be bought: from a pharmacy (Schedule 2), from a pharmacist without a prescription (Schedule 3), on prescription (Schedule 4), or under tighter controls on supply and possession (Schedule 8). The schedules are published in the Poisons Standard and given legal effect by each state and territory.
S2 · S3 · S4 · S8, and the six schedules you meet less often
The four schedules you meet at a pharmacy
The Poisons Standard gives each schedule a title and a general description. It also says the descriptions are general, and that the legal definitions are a matter for each state or territory authority.
| Schedule | Signal words | What the Poisons Standard says | What healthdirect adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 · Pharmacy medicines | PHARMACY MEDICINE | Medicines whose safe use may need a pharmacist’s advice, available from a pharmacy or, where there is no pharmacy service, from a licensed person. | Sits on the open shelves of a pharmacy, with a pharmacist or assistant on hand for advice. |
| 3 · Pharmacist only medicines | PHARMACIST ONLY MEDICINE | Medicines whose safe use requires professional advice, available to the public from a pharmacist without a prescription. | Held behind the counter, so the pharmacist is involved in the sale. |
| 4 · Prescription only medicines | PRESCRIPTION ONLY MEDICINE | Used or supplied by, or on the order of, people a state or territory permits to prescribe, and available from a pharmacist on prescription. | Needs a prescription from an authorised prescriber, for example a doctor; supplied in hospital or by a pharmacy on that prescription. |
| 8 · Controlled drugs | CONTROLLED DRUG | “Substances which should be available for use but require restriction of manufacture, supply, distribution, possession and use to reduce abuse, misuse and physical or psychological dependence.” | Prescribed only by authorised prescribers, some of whom need a special permit to do so. |
Signal words: where the schedule shows
Each schedule has its own signal words. In the Poisons Standard’s labelling rules they go on the first line of the main label, in bold sans serif capital letters, with nothing else on that line except, for some poisons, a dangerous goods class label or a statement of the main hazard. These are the words for the four medicine schedules above:
- PHARMACY MEDICINE
- PHARMACIST ONLY MEDICINE
- PRESCRIPTION ONLY MEDICINE
- CONTROLLED DRUG
Schedule 4 has a second set, PRESCRIPTION ANIMAL REMEDY, for medicines used on animals.
The other six schedules
Not every schedule is about medicines. Several cover household, farm and industrial chemicals, and two prohibit them, with narrow exceptions.
- S1Intentionally blank. The TGA lists it as not currently in use.
- S5Caution. A low potential for harm, reduced with appropriate packaging and simple warnings and safety directions on the label.
- S6Poisons. A moderate potential for harm, reduced with distinctive packaging and strong warnings and safety directions.
- S7Dangerous poisons. A high potential for harm at low exposure, meant only for specialised or authorised users.
- S9Prohibited substances. Manufacture, possession, supply or use should be prohibited by law, except for approved medical or scientific research, analysis, teaching or training.
- S10Substances so dangerous to health that their supply and use is prohibited, for the purposes listed for each one.
What decides a medicine’s schedule
The Poisons Standard is clear that substances are not scheduled on a single scale of toxicity: toxicity is one factor among several. According to healthdirect, the TGA weighs how safe the medicine is and how serious the illness it treats, what side effects it can have, what happens after an accidental dose or an overdose, and whether easy access does more good or harm.
The same active ingredient can sit in more than one schedule. healthdirect gives four things that can move it: pack size, dose, the form the medicine comes in, and combination with another ingredient. A small pack of a non-prescription medicine might reach a supermarket shelf while a bigger pack or stronger dose stays in the pharmacy. The exact cut-offs for any one medicine are in the current Poisons Standard.
Unscheduled medicines
Some medicines are not scheduled at all. healthdirect explains that they can be bought in many kinds of shop, supermarkets and health food stores among them as well as pharmacies, and that their labels often carry safety advice.
Some Schedule 4 medicines carry extra rules
healthdirect notes that some Schedule 4 medicines have extra prescription requirements because of a risk of dependence and misuse, and gives anabolic steroids and benzodiazepines among its examples. In the Poisons Standard, anabolic steroids and benzodiazepines are marked in Schedule 4 and listed in Appendix D. How a prescription reaches the pharmacy as a token is on electronic prescriptions.
One national standard, applied by each state
The schedules are national, but they only become law through state and territory legislation, so healthdirect cautions that the rules for some medicines can vary a little between states. The TGA keeps a list of each state and territory’s medicines and poisons regulation unit, the offices that administer those rules: state and territory contacts on the TGA site.
The standard changes during the year
The Poisons Standard is updated in new editions named by month and year. As at October 2026, the TGA lists the Therapeutic Goods (Poisons Standard - October 2026) Instrument 2026 as the current edition, replacing the June 2026 one, and publishes a table of scheduling decisions that take effect in later editions. Anything written about a particular medicine’s schedule, including this page, can date; the current edition on the Federal Register of Legislation is the version that counts.