Is Crack Cocaine legal in Panama?

Legal status

Controlled. Crack cocaine is reached by the Panamanian criminal definition of a drug, not by a national chemical annex. Article 324 of the Código Penal defines the criminal object for the whole drug chapter, and it does so functionally and by incorporation rather than by a closed national list: «droga es toda sustancia que produzca dependencia física o síquica, como los narcóticos, fármacos, estupefacientes y todos aquellos productos, precursores y sustancias químicas esenciales que sirven para su elaboración, transformación o preparación, de conformidad con las disposiciones legales en materia de salud, convenios y acuerdos internacionales vigentes en la República de Panamá.». The entry read for this row is «COCAINE» in Schedule I of the 1961 Convention, through the alkaloid it contains. The name sits in the international non-proprietary column of that schedule. Panama's own Listado Oficial carries «Cocaína» under the heading «Sustancias Estupefacientes sujetas a Control por Organismos Internacionales», qualified «como patrón estándar para Ministerio Público», which is a forensic reference standard held for the prosecution service and not a permission to supply. The form of the material is not itself an entry and no list carries it. It is reached through the alkaloid, and Panama's criminal law makes no distinction between the base and the salt: article 323 directs the court to weigh the dangerousness of the drug and its market value when fixing the sentence within the band, which is where the form of the material actually tells.

Consequences if caught

The conduct and not the substance decides which article applies, and the placement established above is what lets these articles reach Crack cocaine at all. Preparing the base from the salt is transformation within article 314, so the act of making it is reached separately from possessing it. Article 321 sets 8 to 12 years of prison for unlawful possession in circumstances objectively showing it is not for consumption, and its printed words are «Quien ilícitamente posea drogas, en circunstancias que objetivamente permitan determinar que no es para el consumo, será sancionado con ocho a doce años de prisión.». Article 312 sets the same 8 to 12 years where two or more people agree to commit a drug offence. Article 313 sets 10 to 15 years for bringing a drug into the national territory, even in transit, and raises that by a third to a half where the drug is brought in for local sale or distribution. Article 314 sets 10 to 15 years for sowing, cultivating, extracting, transforming or manufacturing, and article 318 sets 10 to 15 years for buying, selling, storing or exchanging for commercial purposes, doubled in the five aggravated cases it lists. Article 319 sets 8 to 12 years for devoting premises or a vehicle to drug activity, rising to 10 to 15 years for the owner of a commercial place open to the public. Article 322 sets 20 to 25 years where conduct under articles 312, 313 or 321 is carried out by the leaders, directors or organisers of a criminal band, and its words are «la pena será de veinte a veinticinco años de prisión.», so the ceiling this chapter carries is 25 years. The dossier for this country stated that ceiling as 20 years and that is corrected here against the article itself. Article 320 covers buying or possessing for one's own consumption in scarce quantity, and its penalty is a fine of 50 to 250 day units, weekend arrest or community work, in the words «Quien ilícitamente compre o posea drogas para su consumo en escasa cantidad será sancionado con cincuenta a doscientos cincuenta días-multa o arresto de fines de semana o trabajo comunitario.». Where the person is physically or psychically dependent and the quantity is scarce, article 320 imposes a security measure instead. The live cell attributed a band of 2 to 4 years to article 320; that band is in the third paragraph of article 313 and it applies where a drug is brought into the country and the scarce quantity and the other circumstances show unequivocally that it is for personal consumption, in the words «La sanción será de dos a cuatro años de prisión o su equivalente en días-multa o medidas curativas cuando, por su escasa cantidad y demás circunstancias, se determine inequívocamente que la droga es para el consumo personal.». Panama publishes no numerical quantity table for this corpus. Article 320 provides that scarce quantity for personal use is the measure the Instituto de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses determines in each case according to the person's state of dependence, «Se entenderá por cantidad escasa destinada a su uso personal la medida que determine el Instituto de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses, en cada caso, según el estado de dependencia de la persona.», so the live cell's gloss of a single dose is corrected here as not what the article says. Article 323 directs the court to weigh the dangerousness of the drug and its market value when placing a sentence inside a band. Panama provides no death penalty for any drug offence. Those figures are carried forward from the live cell and re-derived against the Penal Code itself, and they describe the offences that this row's placement brings into play.

If prescribed or medical

Resolución 200 of 26 September 2025, published in Gaceta Oficial Digital 30388-A of 16 October 2025, sets Panama's Listado Oficial under Ley 14 of 19 May 2016 and Decreto Ejecutivo 183 of 8 June 2018. It is a list of substances permitted for medical and scientific use, not a criminal schedule, so absence from it is not lawfulness and presence on it is not a defence. There is no medical form of this material and no prescription route, and the alkaloid appears on Panama's list only as a forensic reference standard. Carry any controlled medicine in its original packaging with the prescription and the dispensing label, and confirm requirements with your embassy before travel.

Documentation

Recreational drug use is illegal in Panama and there is no formal decriminalisation threshold, so Panama should not be treated as a decriminalised country. The exact strings searched for this row were «crack, cocaine base, cocaína and the coca and ecgonine entries». Article 323 lets the form of the material tell at sentencing even though the alkaloid entry does not distinguish base from salt. The live cell attributed the offences to Ley 23 of 1986 read with Law 13 of 1994. Those citations are carried forward here, with the correction that the articles the live cell then quotes are Penal Code articles, and the Penal Code adopted by Ley 14 of 2007 repealed the 1982 Code together with the offences defined elsewhere that it covers. The Penal Code was read in the Texto Único of Ley 14 of 2007 as updated to December 2020 and published by the Órgano Judicial, cross-read against the Procuraduría General de la Nación Texto Único carrying amendments through Ley 70 of 2019; the two agree word for word on articles 312 to 324, whose last amendment was Ley 40 of 4 July 2012. Every law amending the Penal Code that the Órgano Judicial lists after that consolidation was checked and none touches articles 312 to 324. The substance lists were read in Resolución 200 of 2025 as published in Gaceta Oficial Digital 30388-A, in the Green List 36th edition of 2025 and in the Yellow List 64th edition of July 2025. All of it was read as at 21 September 2026. Medicinal cannabis is lawful under Law 242 of 13 October 2021 and hemp under Law 464 of 2025 at a concentration not above 1% by dry weight, and neither route is a general permission for any other substance. Panama has no death penalty for drugs.

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