Is Weed Legal in Chile? What the Law Allows in 2026

No gram limit is written anywhere in Chile's drug law. That one omission explains most of the confusion: there is no number to stay under, so everything depends on what a prosecutor believes you meant to do with the cannabis.

Adult-use shops

none

Consuming alone in private

not punished

Consuming in public

fine of 1 to 10 UTM, or a course or community service

Possession limit

none in the statute

Medical

legal with a prescription (Decree 84 of 2015)

What is allowed, tolerated or punished

Five dates that shaped the rules

1. 2005

   Law 20.000 replaces the older drug law and sets the personal-use versus trafficking line.

2. 2015-12-07

   Decree 84 lets the Institute of Public Health authorise cannabis for pharmaceutical products.

3. 2018

   Sativex becomes the first ISP-registered cannabis medicine.

4. 2023-05-23

   Law 21.575 recognises home cultivation backed by a medical prescription.

5. 2026-05-23

   Law 21.817 adds an article 4 clause applying the top trafficking penalty to small quantities of gravely toxic substances, to be defined by a decree due in about six months.

Decree 867 of 2007 lists cannabis resin, flowering tops and extracts among the substances it classes as capable of grave toxic effects, even though medical use has been legal since 2015. That contradiction sits at the heart of the 2026 fight; read what Law 21.817 does for the detail.

Growing: a defence, not a permit

Article 8 punishes sowing, planting, growing or harvesting cannabis without authorisation, but the person can show the plants were for exclusive personal use in the near term. The law counts no plants, so how many pass as personal use is decided case by case. A June 2025 bill from opposition deputies would set six plants per person, but it is a proposal, not law. Formal cultivation authorisations come from the agriculture service (SAG); a BioBioChile columnist notes it approved 8 of 47 requests between 2013 and July 2018.

Since 2023 the prescription route is written into article 8 itself: a receta from the treating surgeon stating the diagnosis, the treatment and its length and the form of administration, which cannot be combustion. No national registry issues a grow certificate, so the paper trail is the doctor's receta and your own records. Argentina's model is different; see how REPROCANN works next door.

Medical cannabis: legal, but only with the paper

Doctors can prescribe when there is a medical need; article 6 of Law 20.000 punishes prescribing without one. Pharmacies dispense ISP-registered medicines on a retained prescription (Decree 84 of 2015) and, according to specialist sites, magistral preparations. The prescription can also support home growing or membership of a patient association, which no statute expressly regulates. The mechanics are in how the cannabis receta works.

What a visitor should assume

There is no legal way for a tourist to buy cannabis. Not being punished for consuming alone in private is a narrow gap in a statute, not a right, and it does not cover carrying cannabis around town. The fine for public use is small; the risk that a court reads carried quantity as trafficking is not.

Article-level detail on fines is in the guide to article 50, and the national overview is on the Chile page. This is information, not legal advice.