Is Methaqualone (Quaaludes) legal in Uruguay?

Legal status

Controlled. The national list is the Anexo I enacted by article 6 of Decreto 198/025 of 25 September 2025, which substitutes the whole consolidated list rather than adding to it, published in the Diario Oficial of 3 October 2025 and carried there only as page images, which have now been read: 526 entries across its three annexes, made under article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294. The annex entry read for this row is "metacualona" in the Sicofármacos section at Lista Verde, Lista II of the 1971 Vienna Convention. The annex prints entry names in capitals; they are given here in lower case. Meclocualona has its own entry at the same list. Article 1 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 names Listas I and II of the 1961 Convention and Lista I of the 1971 Vienna Convention, which this entry is outside, so article 35 is the specific provision for it. That does not by itself exclude article 31, see the street note. The version horizon, stated outright because an absence without one expires silently and says nothing about having expired: the annexes were read as at 25 September 2025, the date of the decreto that enacts them, from the Diario Oficial page images of 3 October 2025, and the power that moves it is article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 in the wording given to it by article 2 of Ley 17.016. The replacement of the whole annex that the earlier cell could not rule out has happened and has been read, and so have the three generic groups made under article 8. This does not rule out a later individual entry or a later decreto. The annex this row rests on is the current one and it was read from the source, not inferred. Article 6 of Decreto 198/025 does not add to the 2020 annex, it substitutes its own Anexo I for the whole consolidated list, and article 8 adds a control with no counterpart in Decreto 265/020: "Quedan sujetas a control todas aquellas sustancias que se encuadren dentro de los grupos genericos incluidos en el ANEXO II", all substances falling within the generic groups of its Anexo II. The official site carries those annexes only as Diario Oficial page images, 174 carillas of the edition of 3 October 2025, number 31.766, and they have been read: Anexo I Estupefacientes at carillas 7 to 12, Anexo II Sicotropicos at 12 to 21 ending in the three generic groups, Anexo III Tablas I and II at 22 to 24, 526 entries in all. The optical character recognition of those pages is not sound enough to search: it carries only about 400 of the 526 entry names and none of the fourteen on carilla 24, so the entries were read off the page images by eye and every statement here about what the annex prints rests on that reading [Certain as to what the annexes print].

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Article 26 of the Constitution provides that "A nadie se le aplicará la pena de muerte", no one shall have the death penalty applied to them, and no limb of Decreto-Ley 14.294 provides a capital sentence [Certain]. Two offence routes are in play on this row and I could not settle which governs. Article 35 punishes breach of the law in matters of import, export, production, elaboration, commercialisation or supply of the preparations in Lista III of the 1961 Convention and the substances in Listas II, III and IV of the Vienna Convention with two to six years of penitenciaría, and possession is not among its verbs [Certain]. Article 31 punishes import, export, transit, distribution, transport, possession not for one’s own consumption, storage and offering for sale of the substances article 30 names, with two to twelve years of penitenciaría and three to twelve where an organised criminal group is involved. Article 30 names, besides the article 1 lists and the precursor tables, "los que determine el Poder Ejecutivo según la facultad contenida en el artículo 15", those the Executive determines under article 15, which is the power to modify or widen the lists and tables [Certain]. This row’s entry is in the 1971 lists annexed to the 1974 text itself, so it did not arrive by a later Executive decreto: it was in the ratified annex from 1975. Those annexed lists carry ten entries at Lista I, six at Lista II, five at Lista III and eleven at Lista IV. Article 1 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 names Lista I of that Convention and not Listas II to IV [Certain]. Whether article 31 therefore reaches this row alongside article 35, or whether article 35 is the only provision for these lists, the official text does not say and I could not settle it [Likely that both are available to a prosecutor]. The two to twelve year range is the country’s published penalty under article 31 and it is not this row’s proven exposure. Article 32 punishes organising or financing any offence in the law with four to twenty years, article 34 punishes supply or facilitating consumption with two to ten years [Certain]. Article 31 also exempts the person who transports, holds, is depositary of, stores or possesses "una cantidad destinada a su consumo personal", a quantity destined for personal consumption, assessed by the judge under the rules of "sana crítica", and the only figure it fixes is forty grams of marijuana [Certain]. Article 36 has to be read with its own scope rather than recited flatly. Its numeral 1, supply to a person under twenty one, and its numeral 6, using a home as a place of sale or storage, are limited in terms to "las sustancias a que se refiere el artículo 1° de la presente ley", and this row is outside article 1, so on the face of the text those two numerals do not reach it. Numerals 4 and 5 speak of "el delito" generically and are not so limited, so the four to fifteen year band and the five to twenty year band where the victim dies may still apply through them [Certain as to the wording]. The two amending Laws matter to this row and are named here because the articles quoted above are theirs. Ley 17.016 of 22 October 1998 article 2 gave article 15 of Decreto-Ley 14.294 the wording under which the list that places this row was made, and its article 3 gave articles 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35 the wording those articles descend from; article 5 of the same Ley added the chapters that carry the precursor and chemical tables [Certain, read from the amendment notes on the consolidated text and from Ley 17.016 itself]. Ley 19.172 of 20 December 2013 does not touch article 35, and saying so is part of the answer rather than a silence: article 35 descends from article 3 of Ley 17.016 and was last rewritten by article 72 of Ley 19.889 of 9 July 2020. Ley 19.172 reaches this row only through the other route, because its article 6 rewrote article 30 and its article 7 rewrote article 31 and wrote the personal consumption exemption into it [Certain].

If prescribed or medical

Decreto 454/976 regulates psychopharmaceuticals separately from narcotics: article 109 has the Executive fix the roll of controlled psychopharmaceuticals, and dispensing runs on the official prescription form through authorised pharmacies with a prescription book and monthly returns to the ministry. Article 111 prohibits outright the circulation in transit through national territory of narcotic or psychopharmacological substances coming from and destined for abroad [Certain]. No allowance for a traveller carrying a personal supply of a scheduled substance was found in the reachable official text, so that question is deferred rather than answered.

Documentation

Carry any prescribed medicine in its original packaging with the prescription and declare it at the border. Legal cannabis access in Uruguay is a separate regime restricted to registered Uruguayan citizens and accredited permanent residents and it does not extend to this substance, see the cannabis row.

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