Is Alcohol legal in Bolivia?

Legal status

Controlled as a chemical. Lista V of the Anexo to Ley 913 is the list of sustancias químicas controladas, and it carries the entry Alcohol Etílico Absoluto (Etanol Absoluto). Ley 913 article 5(c) defines sustancias controladas as the substances named in Listas I, II, III, IV and V, so on the face of that definition a Lista V chemical is a sustancia controlada, and that much is established. What is not established, and is a separate question from the placement, is whether Ley 1008 article 48 reaches ethanol in a drink. The word the entry turns on is Absoluto. What Lista V names at item 4.21 is anhydrous ethanol, listed among the solvents and diluents used to extract cocaine, and a beverage is not that article of commerce. [Certain] on the placement in Lista V. No tag is claimed for the reach of article 48, because the reach is open.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Article 15 I of the 2009 Constitution reads, in its own words, No existe la pena de muerte, and no limb of the Bolivian drug law carries a capital penalty. Ley 1008 of 19 July 1988 article 48 punishes whoever traffics in sustancias controladas with presidio de diez a veinticinco años y diez mil a veinte mil días multa, ten to twenty five years and ten thousand to twenty thousand day fines, and it makes trafficking in larger volumes an aggravating circumstance. Article 48 takes its conduct from article 33(m) of the same law, which Ley 913 left standing and which defines tráfico ilícito as producing, manufacturing, knowingly possessing, holding in deposit or storage, transporting, delivering, supplying, buying, selling, donating, bringing into the country, taking out of the country and financing. The rest of the ladder sits in the same title. Article 46, cultivating or harvesting controlled plants, one to two years and two to four on a second offence. Article 47, manufacture, five to fifteen years. Article 50, administering to another, ten to fifteen years. Article 51, supplying to another, eight to twelve years. Article 52, fifteen to twenty years where the administering or supplying gravely harms health and twenty to thirty where the conduct results in a death. Article 53, a third more where two or more people organise. Article 55, transport, eight to twelve years with definitive seizure of the vehicle. The day fine unit is the statute's own and is not converted here. Article 49 sends the dependent user and the non habitual user caught holding a minimum quantity for immediate personal consumption to a farmacodependencia institute for treatment rather than to prison. That minimum is fixed case by case on the opinion of two specialists from a public institute and no gram figure is printed anywhere in the statute. Holding more than the minimum falls into article 48. A foreign national without permanent residence who commits these acts has the residence law applied and a fine of five hundred to one thousand days, which is the sentence in the article most likely to reach a traveller and which the live cell did not carry. Whether any of that reaches this row is the open question. Lista V exists to control industrial chemicals that can be used to make cocaine, and Ley 913 articles 18 I and 22 regulate their import, production, transport and sale through the Ministry of Government by administrative authorisation. Those are Bolivia's published penalties. They are the country's penalties and not this row's exposure, because whether the offence reaches this substance is exactly what was not established.

If prescribed or medical

The country level rule is Ley 913 article 20. Medicines containing sustancias controladas of Listas II, III and IV, and where applicable those of Lista I, may be made or divided only by laboratories the Ministry of Health has authorised, and they are dispensed to the public only in authorised establishments and pharmacies and only on a doctor's prescription or on Ministry of Health forms. Article 18 II puts the import, export, commercialisation and production of medicinal controlled substances of Listas I to IV behind a prior Ministry of Health authorisation, and article 21 I obliges carriers to require a Ministry of Health or Ministry of Government authorisation before a controlled substance of the Anexo lists is brought into, carried through or taken out of the national customs territory. Attached to this row: the entry sits in Lista V, which article 20 does not mention at all, because Lista V is the industrial chemicals list and not a medicines list. Article 18 I sends it to the Ministry of Government instead, by prior registration and administrative authorisation. No prescription route attaches and none is invented here.

Documentation

The reading. Resolución Ministerial 0223 of 9 March 1992, printed inside the Anexo itself, added Alcohol Etílico (Etanol) to Lista V as item 17, and the unified list that follows carries it at 4.21 among the solvents and diluents. Provenance. The Anexo was read in the Gaceta Oficial edition of Ley 913, edition 947NEC of 23 March 2017, downloaded from the Gaceta at gacetaoficialdebolivia.gob.bo, and cross checked line by line against the copy the Dirección General de Sustancias Controladas publishes at dgsc.gob.bo. The two copies carry the same entries and differ only in line breaks and in a handful of characters where a capital letter I is set as a lowercase letter l in the text layer. The Anexo says on its own face that it reproduces the 1961 and 1971 convention lists as amended in force from 19 September 1987, so it is an old list re enacted in 2017 and it is materially the same list Ley 1008 annexed. Which instrument governs, re derived this pass. Ley 913 did not replace Ley 1008. Its first derogatory disposition derogates article 33 incisos a), q) and r), articles 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 and 44 of Título II, and Títulos VI, VII and VIII, and nothing else. Título III, the offences and penalties at articles 46 to 55, was left standing and is still the law, and Ley 913 itself contains no criminal penalty at all. What did move is the schedule. Article 33(a), the inciso that defined sustancias controladas by pointing at the Ley 1008 annex, is derogated, and Ley 913 article 5(c) with its own Anexo took its place. Ley 906 of 8 March 2017 separately abrogated the coca title of Ley 1008. So a cell that cites Law 1008 for the list is citing a derogated inciso, while a cell that cites it for the penalty is right. One loose end sits in the statute itself: article 46 still reads plantas señaladas por el anexo a que se refiere el inciso a) del artículo 33, and that inciso no longer exists. [Certain] Carriage. Carry any controlled medicine in its original dispensing packaging with the prescription, and expect a carrier to ask for the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Government authorisation that article 21 I of Ley 913 obliges it to require before a substance of the Anexo lists crosses the customs frontier.

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