Is Cannabis / THC legal in Mexico?

Also known as: weed, marijuana

Legal status

Cannabis is named in Mexican law as an estupefaciente. Article 234 of the Ley General de Salud opens «Para los efectos de esta Ley, se consideran estupefacientes» and prints the entry «CANNABIS sativa, índica y americana o mariguana, su resina, preparados y semillas.». The entry names the plant, its resin, its preparations and its seeds, so the seed is inside the entry and not outside it. Article 235 then makes every act with an estupefaciente, prescription included, subject to authorisation by the Secretaria de Salud. The text read for this cell was the Ley General de Salud as it stands after the decree published in the Diario Oficial de la Federacion on 15 January 2026, which reforms article 234 whole and article 245 fracciones I segundo parrafo, II and IV, read together with the Orden Juridico Nacional consolidated text to 7 June 2024 for the articles that decree does not touch, read as at 21 September 2026. Article 245 carries the tetrahidrocannabinol isomers separately, so plant and molecule are answered by two different articles.

Consequences if caught

Where this row sits in the two lists is what decides the rest. The tetrahidrocannabinol entries in article 245 turn on a one per cent threshold, and the plant entry in article 234 has no threshold at all. Article 479 gives this row a line of its own, «Cannabis Sativa, Indica o Mariguana 5 gr.», and article 473 defines the tabla as «Tabla: la relación de narcóticos y la orientación de dosis máximas de consumo personal e inmediato prevista en el artículo 479 de esta Ley». Article 478 is a conditional no-prosecution rule and not a legal allowance, «El Ministerio Público no ejercerá acción penal por el delito previsto en el artículo anterior, en contra de quien sea farmacodependiente o consumidor y posea alguno de los narcóticos señalados en la tabla, en igual o inferior cantidad a la prevista en la misma, para su estricto consumo personal». At or below the table amount, for strict immediate personal consumption and outside the protected places article 475 refers to, the prosecutor does not bring the article 477 case. Article 477 sets ten months to three years of prison, «Se aplicará pena de diez meses a tres años de prisión y hasta ochenta días multa al que posea alguno de los narcóticos señalados en la tabla». It applies to possession below one thousand times a table amount where the circumstances do not make it possession for supply. Its fine is up to eighty dias multa. Article 475 of the Ley General de Salud sets four to eight years of prison, in the words «Se impondrá prisión de cuatro a ocho años y de doscientos a cuatrocientos días multa». It applies to commerce or supply, even free of charge, below one thousand times a table amount. Its fine is two hundred to four hundred dias multa. Its second paragraph raises the prison term to seven to fifteen years where the person supplied is a minor or cannot resist, «se aplicará una pena de siete a quince años de prisión y de doscientos a cuatrocientos días multa», and the previous version of this cell called eight years the small-scale ceiling, so that figure is carried forward and corrected here rather than dropped. Article 476 sets three to six years of prison for possession for the purpose of commerce or supply. Its fine is eighty to three hundred dias multa. Above one thousand times the table amount the Codigo Penal Federal applies. Article 194 of the Codigo Penal Federal sets ten to twenty five years of prison, «Se impondrá prisión de diez a veinticinco años y de cien hasta quinientos días multa». It applies to production, transport, traffic, commerce, supply or prescription of a narcotic without the authorisation the Ley General de Salud requires. Its fine is one hundred to five hundred dias multa. Article 195 sets five to fifteen years of prison. It applies to possession with one of those purposes. Its fine is one hundred to three hundred fifty dias multa. Article 195 bis sets four years to seven years six months of prison. It applies where possession cannot be so considered. Its fine is fifty to one hundred fifty dias multa. Article 196 raises the article 194 penalties by one half in the listed cases. Article 479 is not the controlled-substance list and is routinely misreported as one. It is a short table of eight maximum amounts used by articles 477 and 478 for strict, immediate personal consumption: opium two grams, heroin fifty milligrams, cannabis five grams, cocaine five hundred milligrams, LSD fifteen thousandths of a milligram, and MDA, MDMA and methamphetamine at forty milligrams or one tablet or capsule of not more than two hundred milligrams. Mexico has no death penalty for any offence, which article 22 of the Constitucion Politica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos settles in the words «Quedan prohibidas las penas de muerte». Those figures are set out here because they describe the offences that this row's placement brings into play.

If prescribed or medical

Its medicinal derivatives have their own regulation made in 2021 under article 235 bis, which sits outside the prescription articles. Only the professionals article 240 of the Ley General de Salud names may prescribe an estupefaciente, and they must hold a registered title. Article 241 requires special prescription forms carrying a barcode assigned by the Secretaria de Salud, «La prescripción de estupefacientes se hará en recetarios especiales, que contendrán, para su control, un código de barras asignado por la Secretaría de Salud», for treatments of no more than thirty days. Article 242 makes the pharmacy take up the prescription, enter it in the estupefacientes ledger and surrender it to authorised personnel on request. Those are the duties articles 240 onward impose, and they are the heaviest prescription regime the Act has. A foreign prescription evidences therapeutic purpose and does not create an article 479 allowance or override a prohibition.

Documentation

Carry the medicine in its original labelled packaging with the prescription and a medical letter in Spanish naming the patient, the active ingredient, the dose, the quantity and the treatment period. Those papers evidence therapeutic purpose and nothing more: they do not create an article 479 allowance and they do not override a prohibition. The entry names the plant, its resin, its preparations and its seeds, so the seed is inside the entry and not outside it. The entry relied on for this row was read in the Ley General de Salud as it stands after the decree published in the Diario Oficial de la Federacion on 15 January 2026, which reforms article 234 whole and article 245 fracciones I segundo parrafo, II and IV, read together with the Orden Juridico Nacional consolidated text to 7 June 2024 for the articles that decree does not touch, read as at 21 September 2026.

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