Is Delta-8-THC legal in Uruguay?

Legal status

Controlled, by an express entry rather than by inference. The replacement annex prints "Delta-8-THC" as an entry in its own right, one of six delta isomers listed immediately under "tetrahidrocannabinol; THC" at CAS 1972-08-3 in the Sicotropicos table of Anexo II, carilla 13, all of them at Lista Verde, Lista I of the 1971 Vienna Convention. The six are printed Delta-6a(10a)-THC, Delta-6a(7)-THC, Delta-7-THC, Delta-8-THC, Delta-10-THC and Delta-9(11)-THC, and unlike the rest of the table they are set in italic with the CAS cell left blank. 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]. The anchored search on the Delta string returns exactly those six entries and nothing else, and dronabinol, which is the delta-9 material, is a separate entry at Lista Verde, Lista II at carilla 14 under the same CAS number. [Certain as to what the annexes print.] This replaces the b176 reasoning rather than contradicting its outcome. That cell placed this row by inference, through the generic thc entry and the annex note that the isomers and salts of a listed substance are controlled too. The inference is no longer needed: the isomer is named [Certain]. The oddity the earlier cell recorded is still in the text and is now sharper, because delta-9 reaches Lista I through the generic thc entry and its own delta-9(11) line while dronabinol, which is delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol and its stereochemical variants, is printed one tier lower at Lista II [Certain as to what is printed]. Lista I of the 1971 Convention is named in article 1 of Decreto-Ley 14.294, so article 31 governs and the article 36 aggravations reach this row. 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]. Article 31 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 punishes unauthorised import, export, transit, distribution, transport, possession not for one’s own consumption, storage and offering for sale of the article 30 substances with two to twelve years of penitenciaría, and three to twelve years where an organised criminal group commits them. Article 30 punishes unauthorised production with two to ten years. Article 32 punishes organising or financing with four to twenty years, article 33 punishes organising an illegal shipment abroad with three to ten years, and article 34 punishes supply or facilitating consumption with two to ten years. Article 37 punishes an attempt with the penalty of the completed offence [Certain]. Article 36 provides four to fifteen years for its listed aggravations and five to twenty years where the victim dies. 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 one of those substances, so both reach it. Numerals 4 and 5 speak of "el delito" generically [Certain]. Article 31 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, which the judge assesses under the rules of "sana crítica". The consolidated text in force fixes no figure for this substance, and it uses neither the word reasonable nor the word exclusively; the forty gram figure in the same article is written for marijuana alone [Certain]. The cell this replaces recorded that the 1974 text required a "mínima" quantity and that Ley 17.016 of 1998 replaced that with a "razonable" quantity; that drafting history is carried forward, not re-derived, and neither word survives in the text in force [carried]. 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 then rewrote both offence articles used here: its article 6 rewrote article 30 and its article 7 rewrote article 31, and it is that article 7 that put the personal consumption exemption and the forty gram marijuana figure into article 31. Article 30 was rewritten again by article 12 of Ley 19.513 of 2017, and article 31 by article 13 of that Ley and finally by article 68 of Ley 19.889 of 9 July 2020, which is the text in force [Certain]. The b176 cell placed this row at Lista I by inference from the isomers note under a generic entry. The express isomer entry removes the inference, so the article 31 route and the article 36 aggravations now rest on a named entry rather than on a reading of a note, and nothing in the penalty ranges themselves changes.

If prescribed or medical

Article 1 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 makes import and export of the Lista I and Lista II substances of the 1961 Convention and the Lista I substances of the Vienna Convention a state monopoly, and Decreto 454/976 confines trade to permit holders and dispensing to prescription through authorised laboratories, drug wholesalers and pharmacies. Article 111 of Decreto 454/976 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. For this row supply runs through Ministerio de Salud Pública authorised laboratories, drug wholesalers and pharmacies under Decreto 454/976, and there is no ordinary traveller route. Legal cannabis access in Uruguay is a separate regime restricted to registered Uruguayan citizens and accredited permanent residents, 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.