Is Crack Cocaine legal in Myanmar?

Legal status

Illegal in Myanmar. Crack cocaine is cocaine in its base form, and cocaine is listed at Notification 24/2025, List 1, with the notification also referring to cocaine base preparations. Section 2(a)(ii) of the Law defines a narcotic drug as one the Ministry of Health has declared by notification, and cocaine has been so declared, so nothing turns on which physical form is in front of the court.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: section 20. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law 1993 was read in the copy at myanmartradeportal.gov.mm/legal/344, fetched 18 September 2026, and the amendments in Law 17/2025 were read from the Global New Light of Myanmar, 7 January 2026, pages 3 and 5, on 3 October 2026. Section 20 punishes production, distribution and sale, and import and export, of «a narcotic drug or psychotropic substance» with imprisonment from a minimum of 15 years to a maximum of life imprisonment «or with death». Law 17/2025 replaced «life imprisonment without limit» in the introduction of sections 19 and 20 with «life imprisonment», and its new section 2(i) defines that as «a prison sentence imposed on a convicted person requiring them to remain incarcerated until death». Section 2(a)(i) defines a narcotic drug to include the «poppy plant, coca plants, cannabis plant» and «substances and drugs derived or extracted from any such plant», so this row is reached by the Law's own words, as well as by the notification entry its status records. Those words are the 1993 English text; Law 17/2025 replaced the word for the coca plant in section 2(a)(i), which the newspaper's English renders «Coca tree», with «Coca». Death is not mandatory on the section's wording. Conduct is what sets the band, and the Law grades it in three steps. Section 16(c) reaches possession, transportation, transmission and transfer of a narcotic drug or psychotropic substance, and carries a minimum of 5 years to a maximum of 10 years, with a fine also possible. Section 19 reaches those same acts done for the purpose of sale, and offering for sale or agreeing to sell, and carries a minimum of 10 years to a maximum of life imprisonment. Section 20 reaches production, distribution and sale, and importing and exporting, and it is the one article that can end in death. Section 21 puts an attempt, a conspiracy, organising, administering, financing or abetting on the same footing as the completed offence. Quantity matters at exactly one point, and for Crack cocaine that point is section 26(i). As Law 17/2025 replaced that section, subsection (i) names cocaine at three grammes. The section names cocaine and draws no distinction between the salt and the base, so it reaches crack cocaine on its own terms. Possessing more than that, or transporting, delivering through intermediaries or transferring it, is deemed to be done for the purpose of sale, which moves the case out of section 16(c) and into section 19. It is a presumption about purpose, not a separate offence, and it does not touch section 20. Section 20 is the only article in this Law that reaches death. It punishes production, distribution and sale of a narcotic drug or psychotropic substance, and importing and exporting one, with imprisonment from a minimum of 15 years to a maximum of life imprisonment or with death. Death is not mandatory on the section's own wording, because the section holds out imprisonment as the alternative and joins the two with the words or with death. Section 20 states no weight floor of any kind, so the three grammes figure in section 26(i) does not open it and cannot close it: that figure is a route into section 19 and never into section 20. Life exposure arrives one step earlier, at section 19, which carries 10 years to life imprisonment for possessing, transporting, transmitting or transferring for the purpose of sale. Sections 22 and 23 then take an offender to the maximum punishment provided for the offence, section 22 where it was committed as part of a local or foreign criminal organisation or group, with arms or explosives, using a child who has not completed the age of 18, which Law 17/2025 substituted for 16 in section 22(c), or through the influence or power of a public servant, and section 23 where there is a prior conviction for any offence prescribed in sections 16 to 21. What this cell states is the statute as written. It is not a description of enforcement. Policing of these provisions since February 2021 is not what the text describes, and substantial areas of the country sit outside central government control, so the law on the page and the treatment a person actually meets are two different questions.

If prescribed or medical

There is no therapeutic route for Crack cocaine in Myanmar to speak of. Section 28 does provide exemptions, and they are real, but they are narrow: section 28(a) covers production and research carried on with the consent of the relevant Ministry, section 28(b) covers use in the manner prescribed for production, research or medical treatment with that consent, and section 28(c) covers use, possession and transportation permitted by the Ministry of Health under the direction of a registered medical practitioner. Each is a permission Myanmar grants, and none of them is engaged by a prescription or a licence issued in another country. No medical supply of Crack cocaine is established here, so there is nothing for a traveller to bring the paperwork for.

Documentation

There is no document that makes carrying Crack cocaine lawful in Myanmar, and that is the whole of the documentation answer for it. Section 28 works through permissions Myanmar itself grants, so nothing issued in another country operates on it and nothing you could present at a border would change the position. Where the rule comes from. The instrument is the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, State Law and Order Restoration Council Law 1/93, as amended by Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law 6/2018. The substance lists are not in the Law itself. Section 2(a)(i) makes the poppy, coca and cannabis plants, or a plant the Ministry has declared, and substances and drugs derived or extracted from them, narcotic drugs on the Law's own words, and section 2(a)(ii) adds what the Ministry of Health declares by notification, section 2(b) does the same for a psychotropic substance, and section 30(b), as substituted in 2018, is the power: the Central Body and the Ministries concerned may issue notifications, orders, directives, and procedures. The live lists are Notification 24/2025 for narcotic drugs and Notification 25/2025 for psychotropic substances. Checked 17 September 2026. Placement for Crack cocaine: Notification 24/2025, List 1, as a form of cocaine. Crack is cocaine base rather than a different scheduled molecule; Notification 24/2025 names cocaine and also uses “COCAINE base” in its preparation language, so the cocaine route applies. The Law was further amended by the Second Amendment to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, National Defence and Security Council Law 17/2025, enacted on 31 December 2025, whose English text was published in the Global New Light of Myanmar on 7 January 2026, pages 3 and 5. That text carries no separate commencement clause. Among other changes, it replaced section 26, the deemed sale quantities, restored the expression «the Ministry of Health», replaced «Coca tree» with «Coca» in sections 2(a)(i) and 16(a), replaced the expression «life imprisonment without limit» in sections 19 and 20 with «life imprisonment», which its new section 2(i) defines, leaving the death alternative in section 20 in place, and raised the age in section 22(c) from 16 to 18; the other fields of this cell apply the Law as amended by it. The English text read is a newspaper publication of the law, not the official Burmese text.

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