Is Tobacco legal in Argentina?

Legal status

Not scheduled as an estupefaciente. Every one of the 886 numbered rows of the current Anexo I was searched by name, and all seventeen Anexo II chemical group definitions were read, and neither reaches it, so it is outside the definition article 77 of the Penal Code gives the word. This does not rule out a later decree substituting or amending either annex, and it does not rule out a placement under some instrument other than these two.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. [Certain] Re-derived in this pass from the consolidated text of Ley 23.737 published by InfoLEG: the words muerte and perpetua each return zero hits across the whole Act, so it carries neither a capital route nor a life route, and the heaviest term anywhere in it is the eight to twenty years of article 7. The scope of that measurement is this Act. It is not a statement about any other body of Argentine law. [Certain] Argentina places substances by delegated executive list. Article 40 of Ley 23.737 rewrote the last paragraph of article 77 of the Penal Code to read that el término estupefacientes comprende los estupefacientes, psicotrópicos y demás sustancias susceptibles de producir dependencia física o psíquica que se incluyan en las listas que se elaboren y actualicen periódicamente por decreto del Poder Ejecutivo nacional. Article 2 of Decreto 560/2019 then makes that a dual list: it considers estupefacientes las sustancias incluidas en la lista del Anexo I y las sustancias que queden incluidas en los grupos químicos de la lista del Anexo II. Anexo I was substituted by Decreto 122/2026, published 02/03/2026, and now runs to 886 numbered rows. Anexo II carries seventeen chemical groups and has not been substituted. A search of Ley 23.737 for a substance name is therefore not a scheduling result. [Certain] No entry names it. Spanish and chemical terms searched: tabaco; Nicotiana tabacum; nicotina. There was therefore no entry text to read. [Certain] The alphabetical neighbours were read: Fila 830 Sulfentanilo and Fila 831 TCPy, with no row between them, and the nicotine search is recorded on its own row. The list does name other plants, Coca at Fila 336 and Cannabis at Fila 304, so a plant row would have been possible in form. [Certain] The list read for this row is the complete Anexo I, all 886 numbered rows, taken from the text-layer PDF that the Boletín Oficial publishes and that the decree's own NOTA names as the place its annexes appear. Its sha256 is 197fce006cd7388d4eb06adae573487d2fe820976f55f242d0623e3215deca62 and a copy is kept at research/instruments/argentina/. The low resolution image served on the two normativa pages omits one page of that annex, Fila 614 to 651; the Boletín Oficial PDF does not, and every figure here was read from the PDF. [Certain] The negative above does not rest on predicting where the name would sort. Every entry name on every published page of the current Anexo I was read in this pass, Fila 1 to 613 and Fila 652 to 886, and none of the terms above appears as an entry name. A machine transcription of the same image was then searched for the same stems as a second pass; it returned matches only inside the chemical name columns of other rows and none as an entry name, which corroborates the read without replacing it. [Certain] Re-derived in this pass from the articles themselves. Article 14 first paragraph sets prisión de uno a seis años, one to six years, and a fine for anyone who holds estupefacientes. Article 14 second paragraph reduces that to un mes a dos años, one month to two years, when, por su escasa cantidad y demás circunstancias, surgiere inequívocamente que la tenencia es para uso personal. Article 5 sets prisión de cuatro (4) a quince (15) años, four to fifteen years, y multa de cuarenta y cinco (45) a novecientas (900) unidades fijas, for anyone acting sin autorización o con destino ilegítimo who sows or cultivates, produces, manufactures, extracts or prepares, trades or holds for the purposes of trade, distributes, gives in payment, stores or transports, or delivers, supplies, applies or facilitates to others for payment. A delivery free of charge is tres (3) a doce (12) años, three to twelve years. Article 5 drops to un mes a dos años, one month to two years, where the escasa cantidad sown or cultivated shows unequivocally it was to obtain estupefacientes for the person's own consumption, and to seis (6) meses a tres (3) años, six months to three years, where a free and occasional supply was plainly for the recipient's own use. Article 6 sets the same four to fifteen years for importing and then illegitimately altering the declared destination, dropping to three to twelve years where the quantity shows unequivocally the goods were not for trade. Article 7 sets prisión de ocho (8) a veinte (20) años, eight to twenty years, y multa de noventa (90) a mil ochocientas (1.800) unidades fijas for organising or financing any of the article 5 or article 6 activities. Article 11 raises the penalties in the preceding articles en un tercio del máximo a la mitad del mínimo for its six listed aggravations, among them use of a person under eighteen, violence or deceit, three or more organised participants, and commission near a school, a health centre, a place of detention or a sporting or cultural institution, and the same sentence caps the increase in its own words, sin que las mismas puedan exceder el máximo legal de la especie de pena de que se trate. Arithmetic on article 7 plus article 11 gives twenty six years and eight months, which is a derivation and not a figure the Act states, and the species cap governs it. Article 17 lets the court suspend the sentence in an article 14 second paragraph case where personal use and dependence are proved and order a curative measure instead, and a satisfactory result exempts the person from the penalty. Article 16 adds a curative measure to the sentence of any dependent person convicted of any offence. The figures in the preceding sentences are the penalties Argentina publishes for offences involving estupefacientes. They are stated here so that nothing is dropped, and they are not this row's exposure, because this substance is not on either list, so none of those offences reaches it as an estupefaciente. What a preparation containing it also contains is a separate question, and so is any regime other than Ley 23.737. [Likely] Carried from the live cell rather than re-derived here, because the ruling is not on the instrument pages read in this pass: the 2009 Corte Suprema decision in Arriola held the article 14 second paragraph penalty unconstitutional for consumption in private that harms nobody else, under article 19 of the Constitution. That ruling binds its own case. Lower courts vary, police still arrest, and the statute fixes no gram threshold, so decriminalised is not legalised and sale and purchase remain criminal.

If prescribed or medical

[Certain] Re-derived in this pass. Article 5 of Ley 23.737 opens with the words sin autorización o con destino ilegítimo, so an authorised medical channel sits outside it. Article 8 sets reclusión o prisión de tres a quince años, three to fifteen years, a fine and special disqualification for five to twelve years for a person authorised to produce, manufacture, extract, prepare, import, export, distribute or sell estupefacientes who holds them in quantities other than those authorised, or who applies, delivers or sells them sin receta médica o en cantidades mayores a las recetadas. Article 9 sets prisión de dos a seis años, two to six years, a fine and disqualification for one to five years for a doctor or other authorised prescriber who prescribes, supplies or delivers estupefacientes fuera de los casos que indica la terapéutica o en dosis mayores de las necesarias, rising to reclusión o prisión de cuatro a quince años, four to fifteen years, where the destination is illegitimate. Article 1 of the same Act replaced article 204 of the Penal Code, which sets prisión de seis meses a tres años, six months to three years, for a person authorised to sell medicinal substances who supplies them otherwise than in accordance with the prescription, or without presenting and filing it where the regulations require one. [Certain] Whether those articles reach this row was not established, because no estupefaciente placement was established. A product containing it may still be a prescription medicine under the ANMAT medicines regime, which is a separate instrument that was not read in this pass, and the figures above are the country's prescription offences rather than this row's exposure. [Likely] Carried from the published dossier prepared for this country, not re-derived here: for an authorised medicine a traveller should hold the original labelled package, the prescription that medicine requires, and a medical certificate in Spanish naming the patient, the active ingredient, the dose, the quantity and the treatment period. Import rules and ANMAT authorisation remain product specific, and none of those documents creates a personal use quantity or authorises an illicit preparation.

Documentation

[Likely] Carried from the live cell: medical cannabis is lawful for registered patients only, and recreational sale and purchase remain criminal offences. The instrument named for that regime, Ley 27.350, was not read in this pass. [Likely] Carried from the published dossier: carry any controlled medicine in its original labelled package with the prescription it requires and a medical certificate in Spanish naming the patient, the active ingredient, the dose, the quantity and the treatment period, and confirm requirements with your embassy before travel. Import rules and ANMAT authorisation are product specific. [Certain] Re-derived in this pass for this row: no placement was established for this substance on either list, so no estupefaciente documentation requirement was established for it either, and the lines above are the country rule rather than this row's rule.

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