Legal status in Guatemala
Per-substance legal status for Guatemala, from sourced statutes where available. Legal information, not legal advice; drug laws change, so confirm with the destination’s embassy or drug authority before you travel.
Confirmed legal status
2-FDCK
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PF 013, "2-fluorodeschloroketamine", chemical name "2-(2-fluorophenyl)-2-(methylamino)cyclohexan-1-one", which the 35th edition records as newly included, in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PF 013, "2-fluorodeschloroketamine", chemical name "2-(2-fluorophenyl)-2-(methylamino)cyclohexan-1-one", which the 35th edition records as newly included, in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
25I-NBOMe
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PN 008, "25I-NBOMe", chemical name "2-(4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)ethanamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PN 008, "25I-NBOMe", chemical name "2-(4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)ethanamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
2C-B
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PB 008, "2C-B", chemical name "4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PB 008, "2C-B", chemical name "4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Adderall
- Legal status
- Illegal through its constituents under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a product label rather than a single substance, and it is resolved through its constituents. Those constituents are themselves entries: PA 003, "AMFETAMINE", other name "amphetamine", together with PD 002, "DEXAMFETAMINE", other name "dexamphetamine". A seizure is governed by what it is proved to contain. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a product label rather than a single substance, and it is resolved through its constituents. Those constituents are themselves entries: PA 003, "AMFETAMINE", other name "amphetamine", together with PD 002, "DEXAMFETAMINE", other name "dexamphetamine". A seizure is governed by what it is proved to contain. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Alcohol
- Legal status
- Outside the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92) by the express words of article 2(a), which says the provisions of the law are not applicable to alcoholic drinks. No offence under this law reaches it, article 39 included.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 excludes this expressly, and that is a finding from the statute rather than an absence from a list. Article 2, subparagraph (a), having defined drugs and extended the definition to seeds, flowers and plants, ends: "A las bebidas alcohólicas y el tabaco, no les son aplicables las disposiciones de esta ley". Alcoholic drinks and tobacco are therefore outside the whole law, so none of its offence articles reaches them, including article 39. This was read from the gazette scan; the government text at senabed.gob.gt carries the same sentence with an OCR slip, printing "y no le son" where the gazette prints "no les son". Beverage alcohol is not an entry in either Convention list. Ethyl alcohol does appear in Guatemala's own Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003 at Listado III, customs code 2207.1090, "Alcohol etílico", synonym "Etanol", but Listado III is a diversion control over industrial chemicals and is not a Decreto 48-92 drug placement for a drink. Being outside this statute is not a statement that the product is unregulated in Guatemala. Ordinary licensing, tax, age and public-order rules were not examined here and are a separate question from the drug law. The penalty articles of Decreto 48-92, which are set out in full on the rows this law does reach, are deliberately not repeated here: they are not this row's exposure, and the superseded cell carried them on all eighty-eight rows including this one.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". That rule governs the drugs this law reaches. Article 2(a) puts this product outside the law altogether, so no schedule placement and no prescription route under Decreto 48-92 attaches to it.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 excludes this expressly, and that is a finding from the statute rather than an absence from a list. Article 2, subparagraph (a), having defined drugs and extended the definition to seeds, flowers and plants, ends: "A las bebidas alcohólicas y el tabaco, no les son aplicables las disposiciones de esta ley". Alcoholic drinks and tobacco are therefore outside the whole law, so none of its offence articles reaches them, including article 39. This was read from the gazette scan; the government text at senabed.gob.gt carries the same sentence with an OCR slip, printing "y no le son" where the gazette prints "no les son". Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". Beverage alcohol is not an entry in either Convention list. Ethyl alcohol does appear in Guatemala's own Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003 at Listado III, customs code 2207.1090, "Alcohol etílico", synonym "Etanol", but Listado III is a diversion control over industrial chemicals and is not a Decreto 48-92 drug placement for a drink. Being outside this statute is not a statement that the product is unregulated in Guatemala. Ordinary licensing, tax, age and public-order rules were not examined here and are a separate question from the drug law. The penalty articles of Decreto 48-92, which are set out in full on the rows this law does reach, are deliberately not repeated here: they are not this row's exposure, and the superseded cell carried them on all eighty-eight rows including this one. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003, Reglamento para el Control de Precursores y Sustancias Químicas, Listados I, II and III, read from the World Trade Organization import licensing mirror rather than from a Guatemalan host, https://www.importlicensing.wto.org/sites/default/files/members/59/Acuerdo%20Gubernativo%20No.54-2003%20-%20Estupefacientes%20y%20Sustancias%20Psicotr%C3%B3picas_04.03.2003.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Amphetamine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PA 003, "AMFETAMINE", other name "amphetamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PA 003, "AMFETAMINE", other name "amphetamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Ayahuasca
- Legal status
- Illegal through its active principle under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39. Whether article 36 also reaches cultivation of the plant is discussed and not settled.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a plant or preparation and it has no entry of its own. What is listed is its active principle: PD 004, "DMT", chemical name "3-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]indole", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Guatemala reaches the plant through article 36 rather than through any listing of the plant itself. Article 36, "Siembra y cultivo", punishes whoever without legal authorisation sows, cultivates or harvests "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", at five to twenty years and a fine of Q10,000 to Q100,000, and it does that by its own words without the plant needing to be scheduled anywhere. Article 38 separately reaches trafficking in "semillas, hojas, plantas, florescencias o sustancias o productos clasificados como drogas, estupefacientes, psicotrópicos o precursores". So cultivation is squarely covered, while possession of the raw plant turns on whether the plant is itself "clasificado como droga", and the lists read do not settle that. That condition is not obviously met here. Dimethyltryptamine is not generally regarded as dependence producing, so whether this preparation answers article 36 is arguable rather than settled, and no Guatemalan authority reachable here has tested it [Likely]. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a plant or preparation and it has no entry of its own. What is listed is its active principle: PD 004, "DMT", chemical name "3-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]indole", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Guatemala reaches the plant through article 36 rather than through any listing of the plant itself. Article 36, "Siembra y cultivo", punishes whoever without legal authorisation sows, cultivates or harvests "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", at five to twenty years and a fine of Q10,000 to Q100,000, and it does that by its own words without the plant needing to be scheduled anywhere. Article 38 separately reaches trafficking in "semillas, hojas, plantas, florescencias o sustancias o productos clasificados como drogas, estupefacientes, psicotrópicos o precursores". So cultivation is squarely covered, while possession of the raw plant turns on whether the plant is itself "clasificado como droga", and the lists read do not settle that. That condition is not obviously met here. Dimethyltryptamine is not generally regarded as dependence producing, so whether this preparation answers article 36 is arguable rather than settled, and no Guatemalan authority reachable here has tested it [Likely]. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Benzodiazepines
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PD 006 "DIAZEPAM", PA 004 "ALPRAZOLAM", PC 005 "CLONAZEPAM", PL 004 "LORAZEPAM", PE 009 "ETIZOLAM" and PN 001 "NIMETAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PD 006 "DIAZEPAM", PA 004 "ALPRAZOLAM", PC 005 "CLONAZEPAM", PL 004 "LORAZEPAM", PE 009 "ETIZOLAM" and PN 001 "NIMETAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Buprenorphine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PB 006, "BUPRENORPHINE", in 1971 Convention Schedule III. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule III, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PB 006, "BUPRENORPHINE", in 1971 Convention Schedule III. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Cannabis / THC
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 001, "CANNABIS", described as "the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant", and NC 008, the entry for cannabis resin, extracts and tinctures, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected. MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 001, "CANNABIS", described as "the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant", and NC 008, the entry for cannabis resin, extracts and tinctures, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Cathinone
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PC 010, "CATHINONE", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PC 010, "CATHINONE", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Clonazepam
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PC 005, "CLONAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PC 005, "CLONAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Cocaine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 004, "COCAINE", described as the "methyl ester of benzoylecgonine", with the coca leaf separately listed at NC 003, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 004, "COCAINE", described as the "methyl ester of benzoylecgonine", with the coca leaf separately listed at NC 003, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Codeine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 005, "CODEINE", described as "3-methylmorphine", in 1961 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1961 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 005, "CODEINE", described as "3-methylmorphine", in 1961 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Crack Cocaine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 004, "COCAINE", described as the "methyl ester of benzoylecgonine", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NC 004, "COCAINE", described as the "methyl ester of benzoylecgonine", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Delta-8-THC
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PT 002, the tetrahydrocannabinol entry, whose chemical column reads "tetrahydrocannabinol, the following isomers and their stereochemical" and, over the page break, variants, and which then names "delta-8-THC" expressly among the six it lists, in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PT 002, the tetrahydrocannabinol entry, whose chemical column reads "tetrahydrocannabinol, the following isomers and their stereochemical" and, over the page break, variants, and which then names "delta-8-THC" expressly among the six it lists, in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Diazepam
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PD 006, "DIAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PD 006, "DIAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
DMT
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PD 004, "DMT", chemical name "3-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]indole", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PD 004, "DMT", chemical name "3-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]indole", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
DOM
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PS 002, "STP, DOM", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PS 002, "STP, DOM", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Ephedrine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was customs code 2939.4100, whose substance column reads "Efedrina, sus sales, isómeros ópticos y" and continues "sales de sus isómeros ópticos.", and, in Table I of the 1988 Convention as the INCB Red List prints it, "Ephedrine" with chemical name "([R-(R*,S*)]-α-[1-(methylamino)ethyl]-" and "benzenemethanol)", HS code 2939.41 and CAS number 299-42-3, in Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003 Listado I and Table I of the 1988 Convention. Article 38 names "precursores" expressly alongside drugs, estupefacientes and psicotrópicos, so a Listado I placement is within the trafficking article. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003 Listado I and Table I of the 1988 Convention, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was customs code 2939.4100, whose substance column reads "Efedrina, sus sales, isómeros ópticos y" and continues "sales de sus isómeros ópticos.", and, in Table I of the 1988 Convention as the INCB Red List prints it, "Ephedrine" with chemical name "([R-(R*,S*)]-α-[1-(methylamino)ethyl]-" and "benzenemethanol)", HS code 2939.41 and CAS number 299-42-3, in Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003 Listado I and Table I of the 1988 Convention. Article 38 names "precursores" expressly alongside drugs, estupefacientes and psicotrópicos, so a Listado I placement is within the trafficking article. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Acuerdo Gubernativo 54-2003, Reglamento para el Control de Precursores y Sustancias Químicas, Listados I, II and III, read from the World Trade Organization import licensing mirror rather than from a Guatemalan host, https://www.importlicensing.wto.org/sites/default/files/members/59/Acuerdo%20Gubernativo%20No.54-2003%20-%20Estupefacientes%20y%20Sustancias%20Psicotr%C3%B3picas_04.03.2003.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Etizolam
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PE 009, "ETIZOLAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PE 009, "ETIZOLAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Fentanyl
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NF 001, "FENTANYL", chemical name "1-phenethyl-4-N-propionylanilinopiperidine", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NF 001, "FENTANYL", chemical name "1-phenethyl-4-N-propionylanilinopiperidine", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
GHB
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PG 002, "GHB", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PG 002, "GHB", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Heroin
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NH 001, "HEROIN", described as "diacetylmorphine", and repeated in Schedule IV, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NH 001, "HEROIN", described as "diacetylmorphine", and repeated in Schedule IV, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Hydrocodone
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NH 002, "HYDROCODONE", described as "dihydrocodeinone", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NH 002, "HYDROCODONE", described as "dihydrocodeinone", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Khat
- Legal status
- Illegal through its active principle under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39. Whether article 36 also reaches cultivation of the plant is discussed and not settled.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a plant or preparation and it has no entry of its own. What is listed is its active principle: PC 010, "CATHINONE", and PC 009, "CATHINE", described as "(+)-norpseudoephedrine", in 1971 Convention Schedules I and III. Guatemala reaches the plant through article 36 rather than through any listing of the plant itself. Article 36, "Siembra y cultivo", punishes whoever without legal authorisation sows, cultivates or harvests "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", at five to twenty years and a fine of Q10,000 to Q100,000, and it does that by its own words without the plant needing to be scheduled anywhere. Article 38 separately reaches trafficking in "semillas, hojas, plantas, florescencias o sustancias o productos clasificados como drogas, estupefacientes, psicotrópicos o precursores". So cultivation is squarely covered, while possession of the raw plant turns on whether the plant is itself "clasificado como droga", and the lists read do not settle that. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedules I and III, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a plant or preparation and it has no entry of its own. What is listed is its active principle: PC 010, "CATHINONE", and PC 009, "CATHINE", described as "(+)-norpseudoephedrine", in 1971 Convention Schedules I and III. Guatemala reaches the plant through article 36 rather than through any listing of the plant itself. Article 36, "Siembra y cultivo", punishes whoever without legal authorisation sows, cultivates or harvests "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", at five to twenty years and a fine of Q10,000 to Q100,000, and it does that by its own words without the plant needing to be scheduled anywhere. Article 38 separately reaches trafficking in "semillas, hojas, plantas, florescencias o sustancias o productos clasificados como drogas, estupefacientes, psicotrópicos o precursores". So cultivation is squarely covered, while possession of the raw plant turns on whether the plant is itself "clasificado como droga", and the lists read do not settle that. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Lorazepam
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PL 004, "LORAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PL 004, "LORAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
LSD
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PL 002, "(+)-LYSERGIDE", other names "LSD, LSD-25", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PL 002, "(+)-LYSERGIDE", other names "LSD, LSD-25", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
MDA
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 014, "TENAMFETAMINE", other name "MDA", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 014, "TENAMFETAMINE", other name "MDA", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
MDMA
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 011, "MDMA", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 011, "MDMA", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
MDPV
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 021, whose entry reads "MDPV, 3,4-" and continues "methylenedioxypyrovale" then "rone" across three printed lines, chemical name "(RS)-1-(Benzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl)-2-" and "(pyrrolidin-1-yl)pentan-1-one", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 021, whose entry reads "MDPV, 3,4-" and continues "methylenedioxypyrovale" then "rone" across three printed lines, chemical name "(RS)-1-(Benzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl)-2-" and "(pyrrolidin-1-yl)pentan-1-one", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Mephedrone (4-MMC)
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 022, whose entry reads "mephedrone, 4-" and continues "methylmethcathinone", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 022, whose entry reads "mephedrone, 4-" and continues "methylmethcathinone", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Mescaline
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 004, "mescaline", chemical name "3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 004, "mescaline", chemical name "3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Methadone
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NM 002, "METHADONE", chemical name "6-dimethylamino-4,4-diphenyl-3-heptanone", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NM 002, "METHADONE", chemical name "6-dimethylamino-4,4-diphenyl-3-heptanone", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Methamphetamine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 005, "METAMFETAMINE", other name "methamphetamine", with the racemate at PM 015, in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 005, "METAMFETAMINE", other name "methamphetamine", with the racemate at PM 015, in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Methaqualone (Quaaludes)
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 006, "METHAQUALONE", chemical name "2-methyl-3-o-tolyl-4(3H)-quinazolinone", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 006, "METHAQUALONE", chemical name "2-methyl-3-o-tolyl-4(3H)-quinazolinone", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Methylone
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 023, whose entry reads "methylone, beta-keto-" and continues on the next line, in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 023, whose entry reads "methylone, beta-keto-" and continues on the next line, in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Methylphenidate
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 007, "METHYLPHENIDATE", chemical name "methyl α-phenyl-2-piperidine acetate", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 007, "METHYLPHENIDATE", chemical name "methyl α-phenyl-2-piperidine acetate", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Morphine
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NM 009, "MORPHINE", described as "the principal alkaloid of opium and of opium poppy", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NM 009, "MORPHINE", described as "the principal alkaloid of opium and of opium poppy", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
MXE
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 024, whose entry reads "methoxetamine," and "MXE", chemical name "(RS)-2-(3-methoxyphenyl)-2-(ethylamino)-" and "cyclohexanone", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PM 024, whose entry reads "methoxetamine," and "MXE", chemical name "(RS)-2-(3-methoxyphenyl)-2-(ethylamino)-" and "cyclohexanone", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Nimetazepam
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PN 001, "NIMETAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PN 001, "NIMETAZEPAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Opium
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NO 001, "OPIUM", described as "the coagulated juice of the opium poppy", with concentrate of poppy straw separately listed, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NO 001, "OPIUM", described as "the coagulated juice of the opium poppy", with concentrate of poppy straw separately listed, in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Oxycodone
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NO 002, "OXYCODONE", described as "14-hydroxydihydrocodeinone", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 5, adds that an official prescription form is required for a product containing any substance in list 1 of the 1961 Convention, which is where this substance sits.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was NO 002, "OXYCODONE", described as "14-hydroxydihydrocodeinone", in 1961 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
PCP
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PP 005, "PHENCYCLIDINE", other name "PCP", chemical name "1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PP 005, "PHENCYCLIDINE", other name "PCP", chemical name "1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine", in 1971 Convention Schedule II. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Peyote
- Legal status
- Illegal through its active principle under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39. Whether article 36 also reaches cultivation of the plant is discussed and not settled.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a plant or preparation and it has no entry of its own. What is listed is its active principle: PM 004, "mescaline", chemical name "3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Guatemala reaches the plant through article 36 rather than through any listing of the plant itself. Article 36, "Siembra y cultivo", punishes whoever without legal authorisation sows, cultivates or harvests "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", at five to twenty years and a fine of Q10,000 to Q100,000, and it does that by its own words without the plant needing to be scheduled anywhere. Article 38 separately reaches trafficking in "semillas, hojas, plantas, florescencias o sustancias o productos clasificados como drogas, estupefacientes, psicotrópicos o precursores". So cultivation is squarely covered, while possession of the raw plant turns on whether the plant is itself "clasificado como droga", and the lists read do not settle that. That condition is not obviously met here. Mescaline is not generally regarded as dependence producing, so whether this plant answers article 36 is arguable rather than settled, and no Guatemalan authority reachable here has tested it [Likely]. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a plant or preparation and it has no entry of its own. What is listed is its active principle: PM 004, "mescaline", chemical name "3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine", in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Guatemala reaches the plant through article 36 rather than through any listing of the plant itself. Article 36, "Siembra y cultivo", punishes whoever without legal authorisation sows, cultivates or harvests "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", at five to twenty years and a fine of Q10,000 to Q100,000, and it does that by its own words without the plant needing to be scheduled anywhere. Article 38 separately reaches trafficking in "semillas, hojas, plantas, florescencias o sustancias o productos clasificados como drogas, estupefacientes, psicotrópicos o precursores". So cultivation is squarely covered, while possession of the raw plant turns on whether the plant is itself "clasificado como droga", and the lists read do not settle that. That condition is not obviously met here. Mescaline is not generally regarded as dependence producing, so whether this plant answers article 36 is arguable rather than settled, and no Guatemalan authority reachable here has tested it [Likely]. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Pink Cocaine / Tusi
- Legal status
- Illegal through its constituents under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a product label rather than a single substance, and it is resolved through its constituents. Those constituents are themselves entries: PB 008 "2C-B", PM 011 "MDMA" and NC 004 "COCAINE". A seizure is governed by what it is proved to contain. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 and 1961 Convention Schedules, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a product label rather than a single substance, and it is resolved through its constituents. Those constituents are themselves entries: PB 008 "2C-B", PM 011 "MDMA" and NC 004 "COCAINE". A seizure is governed by what it is proved to contain. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Psilocybin
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PP 013, "PSILOCYBINE", chemical name "3-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]indol-4-yl dihydrogen phosphate", with psilocine at PP 012, in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule I, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PP 013, "PSILOCYBINE", chemical name "3-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]indol-4-yl dihydrogen phosphate", with psilocine at PP 012, in 1971 Convention Schedule I. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Synthetic Cannabinoids (K2 / Spice)
- Legal status
- Illegal through its constituents under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a product label rather than a single substance, and it is resolved through its constituents. Those constituents are themselves entries: PJ 001 "JWH-018, AM-678", PA 008 "AM-2201, JWH-2201", PC 011 "AB-CHMINACA", PM 025 "MDMB-CHMICA" and PM 030 "MDMB-4en-PINACA", among others. A seizure is governed by what it is proved to contain. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule II, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". This row is a product label rather than a single substance, and it is resolved through its constituents. Those constituents are themselves entries: PJ 001 "JWH-018, AM-678", PA 008 "AM-2201, JWH-2201", PC 011 "AB-CHMINACA", PM 025 "MDMB-CHMICA" and PM 030 "MDMB-4en-PINACA", among others. A seizure is governed by what it is proved to contain. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Tobacco
- Legal status
- Outside the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92) by the express words of article 2(a), which says the provisions of the law are not applicable to tobacco. No offence under this law reaches it, article 39 included.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 excludes this expressly, and that is a finding from the statute rather than an absence from a list. Article 2, subparagraph (a), having defined drugs and extended the definition to seeds, flowers and plants, ends: "A las bebidas alcohólicas y el tabaco, no les son aplicables las disposiciones de esta ley". Alcoholic drinks and tobacco are therefore outside the whole law, so none of its offence articles reaches them, including article 39. This was read from the gazette scan; the government text at senabed.gob.gt carries the same sentence with an OCR slip, printing "y no le son" where the gazette prints "no les son". The terms "tobacco" and "tabaco" each return zero across both Convention lists. The 1961 Convention does list plant material by name, cannabis at NC 001, the coca leaf at NC 003 and opium at NO 001, so this row is absent from a list that reaches plants rather than from one that only reaches isolated chemicals. One thing does reach a plant whatever the lists say. Article 36 punishes sowing, cultivating or harvesting "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", and it is not limited to scheduled plants. Whether this plant answers that description was not established here. Being outside this statute is not a statement that the product is unregulated in Guatemala. Ordinary licensing, tax, age and public-order rules were not examined here and are a separate question from the drug law. The penalty articles of Decreto 48-92, which are set out in full on the rows this law does reach, are deliberately not repeated here: they are not this row's exposure, and the superseded cell carried them on all eighty-eight rows including this one.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". That rule governs the drugs this law reaches. Article 2(a) puts this product outside the law altogether, so no schedule placement and no prescription route under Decreto 48-92 attaches to it.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 excludes this expressly, and that is a finding from the statute rather than an absence from a list. Article 2, subparagraph (a), having defined drugs and extended the definition to seeds, flowers and plants, ends: "A las bebidas alcohólicas y el tabaco, no les son aplicables las disposiciones de esta ley". Alcoholic drinks and tobacco are therefore outside the whole law, so none of its offence articles reaches them, including article 39. This was read from the gazette scan; the government text at senabed.gob.gt carries the same sentence with an OCR slip, printing "y no le son" where the gazette prints "no les son". Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The terms "tobacco" and "tabaco" each return zero across both Convention lists. The 1961 Convention does list plant material by name, cannabis at NC 001, the coca leaf at NC 003 and opium at NO 001, so this row is absent from a list that reaches plants rather than from one that only reaches isolated chemicals. One thing does reach a plant whatever the lists say. Article 36 punishes sowing, cultivating or harvesting "semillas, florescencias, plantas o parte de las mismas, de las cuales naturalmente o por cualquier medio, se pueda obtener drogas que produzcan dependencia física o psíquica", and it is not limited to scheduled plants. Whether this plant answers that description was not established here. Being outside this statute is not a statement that the product is unregulated in Guatemala. Ordinary licensing, tax, age and public-order rules were not examined here and are a separate question from the drug law. The penalty articles of Decreto 48-92, which are set out in full on the rows this law does reach, are deliberately not repeated here: they are not this row's exposure, and the superseded cell carried them on all eighty-eight rows including this one. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Xanax (Alprazolam)
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PA 004, "ALPRAZOLAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PA 004, "ALPRAZOLAM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
Zolpidem
- Legal status
- Illegal under the Ley contra la Narcoactividad (Decreto 48-92), articles 38 and 39.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. This is established rather than assumed, because Decreto 48-92 as enacted did carry a death penalty: article 12 lists "De muerte" first among the principal penalties for natural persons, and article 52, "Delitos calificados por el resultado", provided that "Si como consecuencia de los delitos tipificados en esta ley, resultare la muerte de una o más personas, se aplicará la pena de muerte o treinta años de prisión, según las circunstancias del hecho". Two things remove it. First, the Corte de Constitucionalidad expelled article 12 literal a) and the words "muerte o" from article 52 by judgment of 24 October 2017, expediente 5986-2016 [Likely, taken from secondary reports; the Court's own record was not reached, and one of those reports contradicts itself on the expediente number]. Second, and independently of that judgment, article 52 was never conditioned on a substance or on a quantity but only on a resulting death, so no row of this table carried capital exposure even on the 1992 text [Certain, re-derived from the gazette this pass]. Readers should know that the government's own published text of the law, at senabed.gob.gt, still prints both capital passages intact. Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PZ 002, "ZOLPIDEM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One penalty in article 12 speaks directly to a non-Guatemalan reader. The principal penalties for natural persons are listed there, and literal f) is "Expulsión del territorio nacional de extranjeros", expulsion of foreign nationals from the national territory. It is a principal penalty in its own right and not an administrative consequence.
- If prescribed / medical
- Guatemala's traveller rule is article 3 of Decreto 48-92: "Solamente podrá autorizarse la importación, producción, fabricación, extracción, posesión y uso de las drogas en las cantidades estrictamente necesarias, exclusivamente por personas legalmente facultadas y bajo su estricta responsabilidad, para el tratamiento médico, los análisis toxicológicos y farmacológicos, la investigación científica y la elaboración de medicamentos", and "En los centros de comercialización para particulares, su venta requerirá receta médica". This substance sits in 1971 Convention Schedule IV, so any lawful holding runs through that authorisation route.
- Documentation
- Decreto 48-92 annexes no list of substances. Article 1 reaches the drugs "incluidos en los convenios y tratados internacionales al respecto, ratificados por Guatemala y en cualquier otro instrumento jurídico internacional que sobre esta materia se apruebe", and article 2(b) defines "Estupefacientes y sustancias psicotrópicas" as "Cualquier droga natural o sintética, así considerada en tratados o convenios internacionales de observancia obligatoria en la República de Guatemala, el Código de Salud y demás disposiciones que se emitan para determinar las drogas de uso prohibido a que se refiere la presente ley". An anchored search of the whole 57 KB law text returned no substance name at all, which is the measurement behind that reading. The health authority says the same thing in its own words: MSPAS Normativa 22-2001, section 2, states that "Los Estupefacientes y Sicotrópicos son los enumerados en la Convención Unica de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes, en el Convenio sobre Substancias Sicotrópicas de 1971 y en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra el Tráfico Ilícito de Estupefacientes y Sustancias Sicotrópicas y otras Sustancias consideradas como tales por las leyes del país y por las disposiciones dictadas por la autoridad de salud". The entry read was PZ 002, "ZOLPIDEM", in 1971 Convention Schedule IV. Article 2(b) therefore reaches it, because that list is a treaty list of obligatory observance in Guatemala, and articles 38 and 39 then apply to it as a drug, estupefaciente or psicotrópico. Article 38, "Comercio, tráfico y almacenamiento ilícito", sets prison of twelve to twenty years and a fine of Q50,000 to Q1,000,000, both of those figures being money and neither of them a quantity of any substance. Article 39, "Posesión para el consumo", makes possession for one's own consumption an offence in its own right, at four months to two years and a fine of Q200 to Q10,000, consumption being made out where the seized drug "no exceda de la cantidad razonable para el consumo inmediato". No article states a gram figure for any substance, so the line between personal use and trafficking is judicial. Article 36 sets five to twenty years for sowing or cultivation and article 37 eight to twenty years for manufacture, which puts the ceiling on the conduct articles at twenty years. Article 15 names article 39 among the sentences that may be commuted where the prison term does not exceed five years, at Q5 to Q100 per day. One figure in the superseded cell is corrected here. It put cultivation or manufacture at up to about twenty to twenty five years. Read from the gazette, article 36 sets five to twenty years and article 37 eight to twenty years, so twenty years is the ceiling on those two conduct articles and twenty five was never in the law [Certain, re-derived this pass]. Twenty years is not the maximum term this statute can impose: article 52 still provides thirty years where a death results, now that the words "muerte o" have gone from it. Carried from the live cell and not re-derived in this pass [Likely]: Guatemala has no medical cannabis, a 2016 bill having been rejected, and extradition to the United States is possible under a 1940 treaty.
Decreto 48-92, Ley contra la Narcoactividad, Diario de Centro América, 8 October 1992, arts 1, 2, 3, 12, 15, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 · congreso.gob.gt · senabed.gob.gt · MSPAS Normativa 22-2001 secs 2 and 5, https://medicamentos.mspas.gob.gt/index.php/legislacion-vigente/normas-tecnicas?download=79%3Ano-22-2001 · INCB Yellow List 64th edition July 2025, read from the Universal Postal Union mirror at https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/files/postalSolutions/programmesAndServices/postalSupplyChain/customs/listCustomsNarcoticDrugsUnderInternationalControlEn.pdf rather than from incb.org · INCB Green List 35th edition 2024, https://www.incb.org/documents/Psychotropics/forms/greenlist/2025/2412193E.pdf · INCB Red List 23rd edition July 2025, Tables I and II of the 1988 Convention, https://www.incb.org/documents/PRECURSORS/RED_LIST/RED_LIST_E.pdf · Updated September 21, 2026
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Not individually verified
37 substances are not individually verified for Guatemala
For these the governing national drug law is cited, but we have not verified that the substance specifically is scheduled under it. Treat them as unanswered, not as legal. Confirm with Guatemala’s drug authority or your embassy.
| Substance | What we found |
|---|---|
| 1P-LSD | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 2C-E | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 2C-I | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 2C-T-7 | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 3-MMC | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 4-AcO-DMT | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 4-HO-MET | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 5-MeO-DMT (Bufo / Toad) | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 6-APB | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| 7-Hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Amanita muscaria | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Amyl Nitrite | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Barbiturates | Not confirmed as a class. The class is deferred because no member of it is a row of this table. |
| Caffeine | Not confirmed. No xanthine is named in the lists article 2(b) incorporates, and the Código de Salud and the further... |
| Cannabinol | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| CBD | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| DXM | Not confirmed. The first limb of article 2(b) excludes this substance by name rather than merely omitting it, which... |
| Gabapentin | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| GBL | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| HHC | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Ketamine | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Kratom | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| LSA (Morning Glory) | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Memantine | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Mitragynine | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Modafinil | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Nicotine | Not confirmed, and unsettled for one half of the row only. Article 2(a) puts tobacco outside this law in terms, so... |
| Nitrous Oxide | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Phenibut | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Poppers | Not confirmed. The alkyl nitrites this label names are not entries in the lists article 2(b) incorporates, but that... |
| Pregabalin | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Quetiapine | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Salvia divinorum | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Scopolamine (Devil's Breath) | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| THC-P | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Tramadol | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
| Xylazine | Not confirmed. Placement under Decreto 48-92 was not established from the lists read, and this is unresolved rather... |
Drug laws and enforcement change and vary by country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with the destination’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.
Before you travel
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If you’re detained or arrested abroad
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