Are Synthetic Cannabinoids (K2 / Spice) legal in Vietnam?

Legal status

Not applicable as a class status. The synthetic-cannabinoids slug spans many individually listed compounds, and XLR-11 uniquely receives the Penal Code’s special lower band while other listed cannabinoids use the general band, so one class result would be legally false. The decree prints individual compounds, “XLR-11” among them, and the Criminal Code names that one compound in its own lower quantity group, so one class answer would be false for whichever member it did not fit, and the Criminal Code attaches its quantity bands to named substances rather than to families.

Consequences if caught

Death is available on a member by member basis and the member decides which ladder applies, because the synthetic-cannabinoids slug spans many individually listed compounds, and XLR-11 uniquely receives the Penal Code’s special lower band while other listed cannabinoids use the general band, so one class result would be legally false. If the compound proved is XLR-11, producing under Điều 248 khoản 5 and trading under Điều 251 khoản 5 keep the discretionary life or death option at 3 kg, and transporting tops at fifteen to twenty years or life from 100 g with death removed. If it is any other printed cannabinoid, the general ceiling applies instead: 9 kg of solid or 22 L of liquid for producing and trading, and a transport top band of fifteen to twenty years or life from 300 g of solid or 750 mL of liquid. The Vietnamese band that names the lower group reads Heroine, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Amphetamine, Ketamine, Fentanyl, MDMA hoặc XLR-11 có khối lượng 03 kilôgam trở lên, and its life band for the same group reads Heroine, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Amphetamine, Ketamine, Fentanyl, MDMA hoặc XLR-11 có khối lượng 100 gam trở lên. Transporting, Điều 250, Tội vận chuyển trái phép chất ma túy, is the conduct the 2025 amendment changed. Khoản 4 now reads thì bị phạt tù 20 năm hoặc tù chung thân, twenty years or life. Before 1 July 2025 the same khoản read thì bị phạt tù 20 năm, tù chung thân hoặc tử hình, and the words hoặc tử hình are gone, so transporting no longer carries the death penalty in Vietnam at any quantity. Possessing, Điều 249, has khoản 4 at thì bị phạt tù từ 15 năm đến 20 năm hoặc tù chung thân, fifteen to twenty years or life, and never carried the death penalty. Appropriating, Điều 252, carries fifteen to twenty years or life and no death penalty, and the general life band reads Các chất ma túy khác ở thể rắn có khối lượng 300 gam trở lên. The five conducts named here are producing under article 248, possessing under article 249, transporting under article 250, trading under article 251 and appropriating under article 252, and they are articles of the Criminal Code. Death is discretionary and not mandatory in both articles that keep it, because each khoản offers thì bị phạt tù chung thân hoặc tử hình, life imprisonment or death, and the court chooses between them. No Vietnamese judgment was read for this cell, and it states no figure for how often a sentence is carried out.

If prescribed or medical

The dossier this cell is written from carries no prescription column, so no medical route for Synthetic cannabinoids is stated here and none was derived from anything else. What can be attached is the placement of the entry this row is answered through, which the published 2cb entry records as IIB #336. Carried forward from the published 2cb entry and not re-derived from the decree text in this pass: the decree describes danh mục III as usable in medicine and veterinary medicine under the competent authority, and danh mục II as restricted to research, testing, expert examination, defence, security or the medical field. This row sits in danh mục II, the restricted tier in that description, so any medical use of it in Vietnam runs through that restriction rather than through an ordinary prescription counter. Whether Synthetic cannabinoids can lawfully be prescribed in Vietnam, in what form, and what a traveller carrying it would have to show, is deferred and not answered here. This pass did not read Vietnam's pharmaceutical, import or customs rules, and a substance outside the narcotics law can still be refused at a border.

Documentation

Where the rule for Synthetic cannabinoids comes from, and how far it reaches in time. Two instruments do two different jobs. The list: Luật Phòng, chống ma túy số 73/2021/QH14, Điều 2 khoản 1, provides that a chất ma túy is a substance the Government has placed in the danh mục, so the Government and not the National Assembly decides what counts, and it does so by decree. The decree in force is Nghị định 28/2026/NĐ-CP, issued and effective 19 January 2026, whose Điều 3 khoản 2 repeals Nghị định 57/2022/NĐ-CP and Nghị định 90/2024/NĐ-CP, and whose Điều 1 reads “Ban hành kèm theo Nghị định này Phụ lục các danh mục chất ma túy và tiền chất sau đây”, that is, issued with this decree is the appendix containing the following lists of narcotics and precursors. The published 2cb entry counted that appendix as four danh mục in seven parts and 694 entries, a count carried forward here and not re-made in this pass. The offence: Bộ luật Hình sự số 100/2015/QH13 as amended by Luật số 86/2025/QH15, khoản 18 Điều 1, enacted 25 June 2025 and in force 1 July 2025, which substituted the drug articles in full and is the reason this cell separates the conducts instead of saying that Vietnam has the death penalty for drugs. The consolidated Criminal Code text read for the article wording is văn bản hợp nhất số 135/VBHN-VPQH. The reading behind this row. The dossier gives no separate search term list for it, and the published 2cb entry records the row as IIB #336, which is carried forward from the published 2cb entry and not re-derived from the decree text in this pass. The published 2cb entry also recorded how the decree read at that point: XLR-11, and many further synthetic cannabinoids in the same danh muc, CAS 1364933-54-9. That wording, with any adjacent item number or CAS number inside it, is carried forward from the published 2cb entry and not re-derived from the decree text in this pass, and it is a reading of a scanned document rather than a re-reading made here. The horizon. This cell is written as those lists stand after Nghị định 28/2026/NĐ-CP, in force 19 January 2026, and the dossier behind it records its own date checked as 17 September 2026. The power that moves the list is Điều 3 khoản 6 of the decree, which reads “Khi phát hiện chất mới chưa có trong các danh mục chất ma túy và tiền chất ban hành kèm theo Nghị định này … trình Chính phủ sửa đổi, bổ sung và công bố các danh mục đó.”, that is, when a new substance not yet in the lists is discovered, the Ministry of Public Security submits it to the Government to amend, supplement and publish the lists. What the text in hand incorporates is the 2026 appendix together with the Criminal Code as it stands after 1 July 2025, and nothing here was checked against an amendment published after 19 January 2026. This cell does not rule out a later amendment made under that power. Two limits of the source, stated because they bear on how much weight this row can take. The dossier has no search log column of its own, so on a row where nothing was found there is no way to tell a blank from a row nobody searched, and where its instrument column happens to record search terms that is a record of looking rather than a schedule entry. And the decree is a scanned signed document: the published 2cb entry records that it was rendered at 600 dots per inch and read with optical character recognition in Vietnamese, and that normalisation to NFC was needed before any Vietnamese string could be searched against the cached text, because the cache mixes composed and decomposed forms and a literal search returns a false zero. That method note is carried forward from the published 2cb entry and not re-derived from the decree text in this pass.

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