Is 2C-B legal in Uruguay?

Legal status

Controlled, and now on two footings rather than one. The entry read for this row is printed "2C -B" at CAS 66142-81-2, in the Sicotropicos table of Anexo II of Decreto 198/025, carilla 13, at Lista Verde, Lista II of the 1971 Vienna Convention. The annex prints entry names in capitals; they are given here in lower case. The printed spelling has changed and the earlier cell's note about it is now wrong: the 2020 annex printed the space after the digit, and the replacement annex prints it before the hyphen instead, so the name is neither the unspaced form nor the form the b176 cell recorded [Certain]. The weakness the earlier cell disclosed is now closed and the closure is stated plainly. Article 6 of Decreto 198/025 does not add to the 2020 annex, it replaces the whole consolidated list, and article 8 creates a control with no counterpart anywhere in Decreto 265/020: "Quedan sujetas a control todas aquellas sustancias que se encuadren dentro de los grupos genericos incluidos en el ANEXO II", all substances falling within the generic groups of its Anexo II. Those annexes are published only as Diario Oficial page images, and they have now been read: the edition of 3 October 2025, number 31.766, carillas 7 to 24, fetched one page image at a time from the Diario Oficial image service, read by eye off the page and checked against a Spanish optical character recognition pass, with the eye preferred wherever the two disagreed. Anexo I, Estupefacientes, carries 173 entries at carillas 7 to 12. Anexo II, Sicotropicos, carries 278 entries at carillas 12 to 21 and ends with three generic groups, Feniletilaminas and Catinonas sinteticas, each classed Sicotropicos Lista I, and Derivados de Fentanilo, classed Estupefacientes Lista I. Anexo III carries 75 entries in Tablas I and II at carillas 22 to 24. 526 entries in all. The name column was transcribed by eye and every search below was run against that transcription, not against the optical character recognition text, because the recognition text is not a sound basis for an absence: measured against the transcription, it carries only 396 of the 526 names, 9 of the 29 on carilla 22 and none of the 14 on carilla 24, where it captured the CAS and control columns and dropped the substance column altogether. A search run against it alone would return a false zero for about a quarter of the list [Certain, re-derived here; an independent count by the coordinator using a different normaliser returned 400 rather than 396, and both figures are floors because a misspelling counts as a miss]. It is still a different entry from brolanfetamina, which sits at Lista Verde, Lista I at carilla 12 and is the 4-bromo amphetamine, and an anchored search that ignores spaces and hyphens is what reaches this entry at all. [Certain as to what the annexes print.] The substance is also caught by the generic group Feniletilaminas at carilla 20, which is classed Sicotropicos Lista I: this row carries two alcoxi substituents and one haluro on the aromatic ring, all of them named in the group's substituent table [Certain that the printed definition covers it]. So the same decreto places this substance at Lista II by name and inside a Lista I generic group by structure, and it does not say which governs. That matters because the two carry different offence routes: Lista II of the 1971 Convention is outside article 1 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 and points at article 35, two to six years, while Lista I is named in article 1 and points at article 31, two to twelve years. The official text does not resolve the conflict and neither do I [Certain that both placements are printed, Guessing which prevails]. The international schedule was changed and 2c-b is understood to have moved to Schedule I of the 1971 Vienna Convention in 2016; that is carried and was not re-derived from any text I fetched [Likely, carried], and the replacement annex still prints the named entry at Lista II. The version horizon, stated outright because an absence without one expires silently and says nothing about having expired: the list read is the one enacted by Decreto 198/025 of 25 September 2025, published in the Diario Oficial of 3 October 2025, which is the current consolidated national list and replaces the Anexo I of Decreto 265/020 that the earlier cell searched. The power that moves it is article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 in the wording given to it by article 2 of Ley 17.016, and article 8 of Decreto 198/025 subjects substances to control by generic group rather than by name. The annexes were read as at 25 September 2025, the date of the decreto that enacts them and the last amendment the text in hand incorporates. This does not rule out a later individual entry, a later replacement of the annexes, or a later generic group.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Article 26 of the Constitution provides that "A nadie se le aplicará la pena de muerte", no one shall have the death penalty applied to them, and no limb of Decreto-Ley 14.294 provides a capital sentence [Certain]. Read the two ranges below together and take the higher one as the working assumption, because the replacement annex has moved this row and the lower range is no longer the safer reading: the instrument now supports a Lista I placement, which carries article 31 and two to twelve years, alongside the Lista II placement the earlier cell worked from, which carries article 35 and two to six. Which governs is set out at the end of this field and is not settled here. Two offence routes are in play on this row and I could not settle which governs. Article 35 punishes breach of the law in matters of import, export, production, elaboration, commercialisation or supply of the preparations in Lista III of the 1961 Convention and the substances in Listas II, III and IV of the Vienna Convention with two to six years of penitenciaría, and possession is not among its verbs [Certain]. Article 31 punishes import, export, transit, distribution, transport, possession not for one’s own consumption, storage and offering for sale of the substances article 30 names, with two to twelve years of penitenciaría and three to twelve where an organised criminal group is involved. Article 30 names, besides the article 1 lists and the precursor tables, "los que determine el Poder Ejecutivo según la facultad contenida en el artículo 15", those the Executive determines under article 15, which is the power to modify or widen the lists and tables [Certain]. The 1971 lists annexed to the 1974 text itself are short and complete, and all four were checked, not just the top two: Lista I carries ten entries, Lista II six, Lista III five and Lista IV eleven, thirty two in all. This row’s entry is in none of the four, so it reached Uruguayan law by an Executive decreto made under article 15, which is exactly what that limb of article 30 names [Certain]. Checking only Listas I and II would be the wrong test here, because article 35 is precisely about Listas II, III and IV. Whether article 31 therefore reaches this row alongside article 35, or whether article 35 is the only provision for these lists, the official text does not say and I could not settle it [Likely that both are available to a prosecutor]. The two to twelve year range is the country’s published penalty under article 31 and it is not this row’s proven exposure. Article 32 punishes organising or financing any offence in the law with four to twenty years, article 34 punishes supply or facilitating consumption with two to ten years [Certain]. Article 31 also exempts the person who transports, holds, is depositary of, stores or possesses "una cantidad destinada a su consumo personal", a quantity destined for personal consumption, assessed by the judge under the rules of "sana crítica", and the only figure it fixes is forty grams of marijuana [Certain]. Article 36 has to be read with its own scope rather than recited flatly. Its numeral 1, supply to a person under twenty one, and its numeral 6, using a home as a place of sale or storage, are limited in terms to "las sustancias a que se refiere el artículo 1° de la presente ley", and this row is outside article 1, so on the face of the text those two numerals do not reach it. Numerals 4 and 5 speak of "el delito" generically and are not so limited, so the four to fifteen year band and the five to twenty year band where the victim dies may still apply through them [Certain as to the wording]. The two amending Laws matter to this row and are named here because the articles quoted above are theirs. Ley 17.016 of 22 October 1998 article 2 gave article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 the wording under which the list that places this row was made, and its article 3 gave articles 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35 the wording those articles descend from; article 5 of the same Ley added the chapters that carry the precursor and chemical tables [Certain, read from the amendment notes on the consolidated text and from Ley 17.016 itself]. Ley 19.172 of 20 December 2013 does not touch article 35, and saying so is part of the answer rather than a silence: article 35 descends from article 3 of Ley 17.016 and was last rewritten by article 72 of Ley 19.889 of 9 July 2020. Ley 19.172 reaches this row only through the other route, because its article 6 rewrote article 30 and its article 7 rewrote article 31 and wrote the personal consumption exemption into it [Certain]. The b176 cell reasoned on the footing that this row sits at Lista II and is therefore outside article 1 of Decreto-Ley 14.294, so that article 35 was the specific provision and article 31 was arguable. That footing is now contested by the same decreto, which also catches this substance inside a generic group classed Sicotropicos Lista I. If the group governs, article 31 applies directly and numerals 1 and 6 of article 36 reach the row rather than falling outside it. Both readings are set out here because the instrument supports both.

If prescribed or medical

Decreto 454/976 regulates psychopharmaceuticals separately from narcotics: article 109 has the Executive fix the roll of controlled psychopharmaceuticals, and dispensing runs on the official prescription form through authorised pharmacies with a prescription book and monthly returns to the ministry. Article 111 prohibits outright the circulation in transit through national territory of narcotic or psychopharmacological substances coming from and destined for abroad [Certain]. No allowance for a traveller carrying a personal supply of a scheduled substance was found in the reachable official text, so that question is deferred rather than answered.

Documentation

Carry any prescribed medicine in its original packaging with the prescription and declare it at the border. Legal cannabis access in Uruguay is a separate regime restricted to registered Uruguayan citizens and accredited permanent residents and it does not extend to this substance, see the cannabis row.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Uruguay’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.