Is Tobacco legal in Venezuela?

Legal status

Outside the criminal drug schedule. Ley Orgánica de Drogas article 3 identifies controlled drugs by reference to the 1961 and 1971 Convention schedules and this substance has no entry in either, as at the INCB list editions named in the documentation. That does not rule out a later edition or a ministerial determination under article 2. [Certain] for the absence from the two editions read, which was re derived in this pass.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. The Constitution forbids it at article 43, read here in the Contraloría General de la República text: “El derecho a la vida es inviolable. Ninguna ley podrá establecer la pena de muerte, ni autoridad alguna aplicarla.” [Certain], re derived from that text in this pass. The abolition itself is usually dated to the Decreto de Garantías of 1863. [Likely] and carried, not re derived: that decree was not read here, and the year 1863 appears nowhere in the Constitution or in the Ley Orgánica de Drogas. This row is outside the criminal drug model of the Ley Orgánica de Drogas. The Law identifies estupefacientes and sustancias psicotrópicas by reference to the 1961 and 1971 Convention schedules, and this substance has no entry in either. The Law does touch it, but only outside the offence articles: article 34 obliges makers and importers of bebidas alcohólicas, tabaco y sus mezclas to pay two per cent of their operating profit towards treatment and prevention, and article 60 requires advertising referring to the use or consumption of alcohol, tabaco y sus mezclas to be approved in advance by the communications and health ministries and by the órgano rector, on pain of a fine of 80 to 150 Unidades Tributarias. Neither is a drug offence. The word tabaco is named in the Ley Orgánica de Drogas on two lines, both outside the offence articles: art 34's special contribution and art 60's prior approval of advertising. It is the substance the Law actually addresses, unlike its alkaloid, and it has no entry in either incorporated list. Nothing in articles 149, 150, 151 or 153 attaches to this row. Read as at the INCB Yellow List, 65th edition of July 2026, for the 1961 Convention schedules and the INCB Green List, 36th edition of 2025, for the 1971 Convention schedules. That does not rule out a later edition, and article 2 of the Law lets the health and intermediate industries ministries determine further substances, so a later listing is not ruled out either.

If prescribed or medical

Medicines containing estupefacientes or sustancias psicotrópicas may be sold to the public only by pharmacies, and only through the talonario oficial, the official prescription book, under article 62. Article 63 requires every prescription to be written on a special numbered form of a specific colour distributed by the health ministry, legibly and by hand, carrying the prescriber's names, consulting room address, identity number and health registration number, the name of the medicine, the quantity in figures and in words without alteration, the patient's and the purchaser's identification, the prescriber's signature and date, and the prescriber's wet seal. Article 53 provides that importing or exporting these substances, pure or contained in pharmaceutical specialities, by parcel, postal package or correspondence is met with confiscation and the customs law. Article 37 makes lawful only what duly authorised persons do, limits the existence and use of these substances strictly to the quantities needed for medical treatment, the legal manufacture of medicines or scientific research, and declares any other activity, use or destination illicit. This row is not a medicine within that regime, which reaches only medicines containing estupefacientes or sustancias psicotrópicas. The Law's only provisions touching this row are article 34, the two per cent special contribution on makers and importers of bebidas alcohólicas, tabaco y sus mezclas, and article 60, the prior approval of advertising.

Documentation

Consolidation read: Ley Orgánica de Drogas, sanctioned 18 August 2010, published in Gaceta Oficial 39.510 of 15 September 2010 and reprinted, the reprint read here being the one ordered under article 4 of the Ley de Publicaciones Oficiales to correct Gaceta Oficial 39.535 of 21 October 2010, which was carried in Gaceta Oficial 39.546 of 5 November 2010. The 39.510 scan and the reprint text were compared on articles 131, 149 and 153 and agree on every figure and range. [Certain] that the reprint text read here is the 39.546 one, resolved in this pass against the gazette itself rather than inferred from the reprint order. Gaceta Oficial number 39.546 was read: its masthead is "Numero 39.546" over "Caracas, viernes 5 de noviembre de 2010", its sumario carries the "Aviso Oficial mediante el cual se corrige por error material la Ley Organica de Drogas, sancionada el 18 de agosto de 2010". The issue is a 21 page scan with no text layer and was read through Spanish optical character recognition, so everything below the masthead was matched on recognised text and not on the image. Measured against the reprint text read here, in 24 character blocks: article 153 matches on 22 of 23, article 149 on 20 of 23 and article 134 on 15 of 24, the shortfall in each being optical recognition noise on the scanned side. [Certain as to the masthead and the sumario, which are large print and unambiguous, and therefore as to the issue number and its date and subject.] [Likely as to the per article comparison, which cannot be stronger than the optical recognition it runs on.] Control model, re derived from the statute in this pass. Article 2 applies the Law's control, vigilance and fiscalisation provisions to “el conjunto de sustancias incorporadas en las listas y anexos de los convenios y tratados suscritos y ratificados por la República”, and to further substances determined by the ministries with competence in health and in intermediate industries. Article 3 numeral 12 defines estupefacientes as “cualesquiera de las sustancias, naturales o sintéticas, que figuran en la lista I o la lista II de la Convención Única de 1961, Sobre Estupefacientes, Enmendada por el Protocolo de 1972”, and numeral 29 defines a sustancia psicotrópica as “cualquier sustancia, natural o sintética, o cualquier material natural que figure en las listas I, II, III o IV del Convenio sobre Sustancias Psicotrópicas de 1971”. The Law's own Anexo I, Lista I and Lista II, is a list of controlled chemicals and precursors, not of drugs: it runs from Ácido N-acetilantranilico and Ácido Lisérgico through Efedrina, Ergometrina, Ergotamina, Isosafrol, Piperonal, Safrol and Seudoefedrina to Permanganato de potasio and Anhídrido acético. There is therefore no Venezuelan chemical schedule of drugs to read; the schedule is the Convention schedule. No anchored entry was found for this row. The term list was built from the name columns of the two incorporated INCB lists and from the 2026-09-20 Venezuela dossier's quotation column, matched anchored at the start of the entry name and never as a free substring, and every candidate was read before it was accepted or discarded. Read as at the INCB Yellow List, 65th edition of July 2026, for the 1961 Convention schedules and the INCB Green List, 36th edition of 2025, for the 1971 Convention schedules. That does not rule out a later edition, and article 2 of the Law lets the health and intermediate industries ministries determine further substances, so this is an unresolved row and not a proved absence. Method note. The 2026-09-20 Venezuela dossier was used only as the slug list and as a term list source. Its outcome column, its instrument column and its quotation column were not treated as evidence, and no placement in this batch rests on them; every placement is the entry read in the list the statute incorporates. Sibling name traps were checked rather than assumed: desomorphine, ethylmorphine, nicomorphine, nicocodine, norcodeine and dihydrocodeine are separate entries that anchored matching correctly did not return for the morphine or codeine rows, and brolamfetamine is a separate entry that did not return for the amphetamine row. Carried from the live cell and not re derived here: that there is no medical cannabis programme in Venezuela, that CBD and hemp are treated as illegal, and that only limited scientific research licences exist. [Likely], source is the live 2cb cell dated 2026-06-26, none of it is in the Ley Orgánica de Drogas. Correction carried into every cell of this batch: the gram figures are in article 153 and in article 149, not in article 131. The live cells attributed them to article 131, which prints no quantity at all. The ceiling of this Law is thirty years under the final paragraph of article 149, not twenty five. Routes run for the instrument in this pass. The Asamblea Nacional URL cited on every row of the 2026-09-20 dossier returned HTTP 404 and 5,734 bytes of HTML, so that register is not usable. The UNODC SHERLOC copy returned HTTP 200 and a 9.9 MB scan of the Gaceta Oficial of 15 September 2010, which was read with pdftotext. oas.org redirected every juridico path to its unavailable page. A clean digital text of the reprint was obtained from a Venezuelan law firm reproduction and the two were compared on articles 131, 149 and 153, which agree.

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