Cannabis in Chile

Chile sits in an odd legal middle. Smoking cannabis alone at home is not an offence, buying it is not legal anywhere, and a doctor's prescription can turn some of that around. All of it hangs on one statute, Law 20.000 of 2005, and Decree 867 of 2007, which lists cannabis resin, flowering tops and extracts among the drugs it classes as capable of grave toxic effects.

Article 50 of Law 20.000 treats consumption in public places or places open to the public, and in private places by prior agreement among several people, as a minor offence (falta). The judge chooses a sanction: a fine of 1 to 10 monthly tax units (UTM), a prevention programme of up to 60 days or treatment of up to 180 days, or community service. A driving-licence suspension of up to six months can come with it. Consuming alone in private is not punished. The statute sets no gram limit. Article 4 punishes small-scale trafficking with 541 days to five years in prison and a fine of 10 to 40 UTM, unless the person shows the drug was for medical treatment or for exclusive personal use in the near term. The law says that excuse fails when the quantity does not reasonably suggest personal use or the circumstances point to trafficking, so prosecutors and courts weigh amount, packaging, scales, cash and place.

Growing follows the same logic. Article 8 punishes sowing, planting, growing or harvesting cannabis without authorisation with three years and a day to ten years in prison and a fine of 40 to 400 UTM, but the person can show it was for exclusive personal use in the near term, which brings the case down to the article 50 sanctions. Law 21.575, the "antinarcos" law published on 23 May 2023, added a medical basis: a prescription from the treating surgeon, stating the diagnosis, the treatment and its length and a form of administration that is not combustion, justifies growing for treatment. The Constitutional Court let that provision stand on 25 April 2023 by five votes to three, according to T13. Formal cultivation authorisations come from the agriculture service (SAG).

The medical channel is older. Decree 84 of 2015 (signed 30 October, published 7 December 2015) moved cannabis from List I to List II of the Health Ministry's narcotics regulation (Decree 404 of 1983) and let the Institute of Public Health (ISP) authorise and control cannabis for pharmaceutical products for human use. Pharmaceutical products containing cannabis can be sold in pharmacies on a retained prescription with stock control. Law 20.000 article 6 punishes a doctor who prescribes these drugs without a medical or therapeutic need, so a doctor may prescribe when there is one; the sources we opened name no special licence. Press and specialist sites say pharmacies also make magistral preparations against a retained prescription. Sativex, a THC and CBD spray for multiple sclerosis, was reported in October 2018 as the first ISP-approved cannabis medicine. Doctors and patients also use cannabis flower and extracts from unregistered supply, which is where the law is thinnest.

That thin spot came into view in August 2026. On 13 August the Aysén regional prosecutor's office and the Carabineros' OS-7 unit carried out Operation Imperio Ámsterdam: 42 search warrants in nine regions, more than 20 premises linked to Dispensario Nacional searched and 72 people detained. On 19 August 44 people were formalised at the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago on charges that include drug trafficking, illegal cultivation, diversion of authorised cultivation, criminal association and money laundering. Prosecutors allege the chain used a medical label to sell cannabis. On 2 September the court ordered pre-trial detention for eight defendants, and Meganoticias reported that the Santiago Court of Appeals replaced it with lesser measures on 11 September. The defendants are presumed innocent and the case is under investigation. A Colliers survey reported by Emol counted 56 dispensaries in the country, 30 of them in the Santiago region. The flower they hand over is not an ISP-registered medicine, a point a Biobío columnist made on 31 August.

The other change is Law 21.817, published in the Diario Oficial on 23 May 2026 after promulgation on 14 May. It adds a last paragraph to article 4: when the small quantities that the regulation determines are of substances capable of grave toxic effects or considerable damage to health, as classified under Decree 867, the penalty of article 1 applies, five years and a day to fifteen years. A transitional article gives the Ministry of Public Security six months, to about 23 November 2026, to amend Decree 867 with a new classification of substances dangerous even in low amounts. Decree 867 as we read it already lists cannabis resin, flowering tops and extracts, so 37 opposition deputies asked the Constitutional Court on 13 April 2026, before the bill became law, to strike the clause, warning it could reach medical patients. We could not find a ruling on that request, or an amended Decree 867 by 29 September 2026. The law does not name cannabis, so how far it reaches small amounts of cannabis is unsettled until the decree appears.

Chile has no licensed adult-use shops and no Uruguay-style pharmacy sales. A June 2025 bill from opposition deputies to regulate adult use, with up to six plants per person in its summary, is a proposal, not law. Because we found no public ISP list of pharmacies that dispense cannabis preparations, Verdex lists no Chilean sellers. We list only businesses we can tie to a regulator's register, never grey-market dispensaries.