Is Oxycodone legal in Paraguay?
- Legal status
- Controlled. Named in Lista I of the estupefacientes sheet of the schedule made under article 1 of Ley 1.340/1988, as the entry Oxicodona. That sheet is headed Estupefacientes incluidos en la Convencion de 1961, so the list it reproduces is the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs schedule of the same number, given effect nationally through article 1.
- Consequences if caught
- Capital exposure: none. Article 4 of the 1992 Constitucion Nacional reads Queda abolida la pena de muerte, so no capital penalty is available in Paraguay, and no article of Ley 1.340/1988 provides one. [Certain] This row is placed. The schedule made under article 1 of Ley 1.340/1988 names it in Lista I of the estupefacientes sheet as the entry Oxicodona. Ley 1.340/1988 sets the conduct offences. Article 13 punishes supply without authorization with 6 to 15 years penitentiary, forfeiture of the goods and a fine of four times their value. Article 14 raises that to 10 to 25 years where the supply is to a minor, and article 15 applies the same range to supply in teaching, religious, welfare, sporting, cultural or social premises, at public entertainments, or in places of detention. Article 16 punishes supply made to prepare, facilitate, commit or conceal another offence with 5 to 15 years. Article 21, as replaced by Ley 1.881/2002, punishes unauthorized introduction into the country or dispatch abroad with 5 to 10 years, forfeiture and the same fine, and article 22 applies that penalty to any plant, substance or product usable in making these substances. Article 25 punishes bringing them in under temporary admission or in transit with 10 to 20 years. Article 26 punishes activity carried on from national territory aimed at sending them abroad with 10 to 25 years. Article 33 punishes sowing, cultivating, harvesting or gathering the plants that serve to make them, and financing that, with 10 to 20 years and destruction of the crop. Article 27, which punished unauthorized possession with 5 to 15 years, was repealed by article 4 of Ley 1.881/2002, so there is no longer a freestanding possession offence in this law. [Certain] The highest range stated in the statute is 10 to 25 years, but that is not the maximum it can reach, because four articles multiply a penalty rather than state one. Article 17 punishes causing a person to consume these substances by deceit, threat or violence with 10 to 20 years, and raises the penalty by one third to one half where the victim is a minor, mentally ill, a relative within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity, or the spouse, or where the author is a health professional, which reaches 30 years. Article 37 punishes instigating or persuading another, or achieving production or trafficking by deceit, threat or violence, with the same 10 to 20 years and the same uplift, where the victim is a minor, a relative within the second degree, the spouse, or a person in a relationship of obedience or dependence. Article 41 punishes committing offences to procure or force the release of someone held for an offence under this law with the maximum penalty for the offence committed, and imposes double that penalty where the release is actually achieved, which on a 25 year offence reaches 50 years. Article 42 punishes belonging to an association formed to commit these offences with 5 to 15 years on that fact alone, and doubles the penalty for its leader or promoter, which reaches 30 years. None of the four is a separate drug offence, so each applies on top of whichever article above is charged. [Certain] Article 30 exempts from penalty a person holding a substance to which the law refers that a doctor prescribed for them, or holding it for their exclusive personal use, and punishes a quantity greater than the amount prescribed or than personal use requires with 2 to 4 years penitentiary and forfeiture. Its second paragraph treats as the exclusive personal use of a farmacodependiente the holding of enough substance for daily use, the amount to be fixed case by case by the Medico Forense, a specialist doctor designated by the Ministerio de Salud Publica y Bienestar Social and another designated by the affected person at their own cost if they ask for one, and then states in its own words: En el caso de la Marihuana no sobrepasara los diez gramos y de dos gramos en el de la Cocaina, Heroina y otros opiaceos. [Certain] Article 30's second figure covers Cocaina, Heroina y otros opiaceos at 2 grams. This row is a semi synthetic made from an opium alkaloid, so whether it falls within otros opiaceos is arguable either way and was not established. [Guessing] on either reading, and no gram figure should be quoted for it.
- If prescribed or medical
- This substance has a medical route in Paraguay and sits in Lista I of the estupefacientes sheet, as the entry Oxicodona. Article 6 of Ley 1.340/1988 requires every prescription for a controlled substance to be written on a numbered quadruplicate form supplied at cost by the Ministerio de Salud Publica y Bienestar Social, showing the prescriber's name and professional registration number, the medicine, the quantity in figures and words, and the patient's name, address and identity document, and it is valid for eight days from issue. Article 33 of Decreto 5.213/2005 restricts a narcotic monodrug to that Receta Cuadruplicada and allows an associated narcotic on a Receta Simple Archivada, and it caps a single prescription at 30 days of treatment. Medicines containing these substances may be dispensed only by pharmacies licensed by that Ministry, on the original prescription. Article 30 of Ley 1.340/1988 exempts a person holding what a doctor prescribed for them, and punishes a quantity greater than the amount prescribed. A traveller carrying it should hold the prescription, should not carry more than it states, and should confirm requirements with their embassy before travel. Whether a foreign prescription is accepted at the border was not settled from the text read.
- Documentation
- Control model. Article 1 of Ley 1.340/1988 defines sustancias estupefacientes y drogas peligrosas as, first, those in the lists annexed to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances ratified by Leyes 338 and 339 of 17 December 1971, second, any substance of natural or synthetic origin able to produce dependence, stimulation or depression of the central nervous system, or hallucinations, motor and sensory disturbance, or a change in behaviour, perception or mood, or effects analogous to the first limb, and third, the salts, preparations and pharmaceutical specialities and any product usable in their elaboration. The second and third limbs are fixed by decree of the Executive originating in the Ministerio de Salud Publica y Bienestar Social, on a list article 1 requires to be updated in December of each year and to name substances by the generic name adopted by the World Health Organization. The decree in force is Decreto 5.213 of 6 May 2005, whose article 1 was replaced by Decreto 5.282 of 2021, which also abrogated Decreto 12.064/2008. [Certain] Schedule read. The consolidated schedule is published by DINAVISA as the Listado Actualizado de Sustancias sujetas a fiscalizacion en Paraguay, Dic. 2025, in three sheets, estupefacientes, psicotropicos, and precursores y productos quimicos. It was read in full for this row and it holds 469 named entries. [Certain] That workbook is a publisher consolidation and not the instrument itself, and it was checked against both of the sources it consolidates. Two omissions were measured. It drops 25I-NBOMe, which is entry PN 008 of the 1971 Convention list and sits between two entries the workbook does reproduce, and it drops Amitriptilina from the national tier although Decreto 5.282/2021 opens that list with that name. So an absence in the workbook alone does not establish an absence in law. Every row in this batch that is recorded as not found was searched against the Convention lists as well, in Spanish and in English and by chemical name, because article 1 limb a of Ley 1.340/1988 incorporates those lists directly and only limbs b and c depend on the decree. [Certain] Entry read for this row: Oxicodona, in Lista I of the estupefacientes sheet. Oximorfona is a separate Lista I entry and is not this row. [Certain] Amending history re-derived this pass. Ley 1.340/1988 has been amended by Ley 68/1992 on article 2, Ley 171/1993 on articles 51 and 52, Ley 1.881/2002, Ley 5.434/2015 on article 23, and Ley 6.902/2022 on articles 2, 3, 4, 23, 47, 101 and 105. Ley 1.881/2002 rewrote articles 19, 21, 23, 53 and 54, added chapters 10 to 16, renumbered the old articles 72 to 83 as 99 to 111, and by its article 4 repealed articles 27, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60. Articles 1 and 30 have not been amended. [Certain] Correction to the live cell. The live Paraguayan cells attribute trafficking and cultivation to article 16 at 10 to 20 years. Article 16 is supply made to facilitate another offence and carries 5 to 15 years. Cultivation is article 33 and carries 10 to 20 years. The article number in the live cell is wrong and has been corrected here against the statute text. [Certain] The research dossier was not relied on for placement. Its two cited library identifiers for the primary instrument were both fetched and both resolve to unrelated statutes, one on housing debt and one on a municipal land transfer. Its quotation column is a formula wrapped around the corpus name rather than a quotation from any Paraguayan text. It assigns a 20 year ceiling to article 27, which set 5 to 15 years and was repealed in 2002. It offered Escopolamina, Catha edulis, Lophophora williamsii and Ergina as Paraguayan entry names and none of the four is in the December 2025 schedule. It recorded ketamine, tramadol, GHB, mephedrone, methylone, MDPV, MXE and 2C-B as unresolved and all eight are named entries. Every placement stated here was read from the schedule itself. [Certain] Capital and life. Article 4 of the 1992 Constitucion Nacional reads Queda abolida la pena de muerte. Ley 1.340/1988 contains no capital provision and no life provision, and its highest range is 10 to 25 years. [Certain] The schedule read was the Listado Actualizado de Sustancias sujetas a fiscalizacion en Paraguay, Dic. 2025, published by DINAVISA under Decreto 5.213/2005 as amended by Decreto 5.282/2021, read as at 21 September 2026, together with the 1961 and 1971 Convention lists that article 1 limb a incorporates directly. Reading them does not rule out a later decree, a later edition of the list, or a later Convention scheduling decision that names this substance.
Court records
We have not yet assessed whether court records are publicly available for this jurisdiction.
Other substances confirmed in Paraguay
Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Paraguay’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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