Uruguay countries/uy.yaml
The drug law exempts a person who carries or keeps a quantity meant for their own use.[@art7] The judge decides that question, and the law treats up to 40 g of marijuana as a personal amount.[@art7, uy1494] That exemption stands whether or not the cannabis came from a pharmacy, a club or a registered home grow.[@d39] A harvest from up to six plants at home, or a club's harvest, is covered when it was grown as the law allows.[@d39] The regulating decree authorises possession for personal use on the same 40 g measure.[@d39] Possession that a judge finds is not for personal use carries two to twelve years.[@uy1494]
Registered residents may grow up to six flowering plants per household with an annual harvest of at most 480 g.[@law] Registration with the state regulator IRCCA is mandatory, and choosing home growing excludes you from pharmacies and clubs.[@ircca] Unregistered growing is an offence, with twenty months to ten years in prison, though a judge weighs whether it was for personal use.[@uy1494]
Personal possession is exempt when the cannabis is for the person's own use, whether or not that person is on a register.[@art7] Growing, selling and other supply without authorisation remain criminal offences.[@art7]
Sharing or giving cannabis that was obtained legally, from a pharmacy, a registered club or a registered home grow, is not penalised.[@sndmar] The 2026 national evaluation counts that sharing as legal access: 20.9% of people who had used cannabis in the past year most often got it that way.[@sndmar] Buying cannabis for someone else, and sharing cannabis from an unregistered grow or from a dealer, sit outside that rule.[@sndmar] Sale without a licence remains a criminal offence.[@sndmar]
sndmar, uyxxi
Smoking is allowed wherever tobacco is: not in enclosed public spaces, workplaces, schools or health facilities.[@law] Using in the street or a park is lawful, one of the most permissive rules anywhere.[@wiki] Working or driving under the influence is prohibited.[@law]
Only registered Uruguayan citizens and permanent residents aged 18+ can buy, at participating pharmacies, verified by fingerprint, up to 10 g a week (40 g a month) at a state-set price.[@ircca] Tourists are excluded.[@ircca] Each person must pick one route: pharmacy, club or home grow.[@wiki]
Medical cannabis is legal and a 2019 law aimed to widen access,[@ircca] but few registered products exist, they are expensive, and most patients rely on the adult-use channels or home-made preparations instead.[@wiki]
Three state registries hold the identity of every legal buyer, grower and club member.[@law, ircca] Driving has a zero-tolerance THC rule, and employers may test for use at work.[@law] No criminal record arises from personal use.[@law]
Seeds and cuttings move only inside the regulated system.[@d120] The regulator IRCCA alone imports them, for licensed producers, registered home growers and membership clubs.[@d120] Licensed producers may produce and dispense them, and home growers and clubs may produce seeds or cuttings only for their own crop, after registering with the national seed institute.[@d120]
Membership clubs are one of three legal routes, alongside pharmacies and home growing, and a resident may register for only one.[@ircca25] A club is a non-profit association of at most 45 members growing up to 99 flowering plants.[@ircca25] At the end of 2025 there were 557 clubs, in every department.[@ircca25] By March 2026 some 575 clubs had about 20,200 members; with under a quarter of registered users they say they supply more than half of the legal cannabis, about 4.75 tonnes against 4.25 tonnes sold by pharmacies.[@inf26] The clubs are pressing to be allowed to serve tourists.[@inf26]
Eleven years after legalisation, the government's second evaluation of the law found that 46% of current users were registered for one of the legal routes.[@snd26] Classic trafficking of pressed cannabis, the main source in 2014, supplied only 6.7% of users in 2024.[@snd26] What remains is mostly a grey market of about 30%: cannabis from unregistered home growers … nct from traditional trafficking and less criminal, and one of the main unsolved problems.[@snd26] Pharmacies had 74,583 registered buyers at the end of 2024, but only 20 to 40% of them bought in any month, and the report says supply and distribution problems keep the legal market at about half its potential.[@snd26]
The regulating decree treats a driver's capacity as impaired whenever THC is detected in the body; it sets no numerical threshold.[@d120] Traffic police, municipal inspectors and the coast guard may test, with devices chosen by the cannabis institute, and a driver who tests positive may ask for a confirming test at their own cost.[@d120] The licence is withheld and the penalties of the road traffic law apply.[@d120] The government's 2026 evaluation notes that roadside testing has so far been unsystematic and experimental, with regular monitoring planned from 2026.[@snd26]
The legal market is closed to visitors.[@d120] To buy in a pharmacy, join a club or register as a home grower, a person must be an adult … ayan identity card and proof of address; each person may use only one of the three routes.[@d120] A tourist has no legal source.[@d120]
Uruguay publishes prosecutions for all drug offences together, not for cannabis alone.[@snd26] People charged with drug offences numbered 1,187 in 2013, the year the law passed, fell to … in the series; throughout they were between 9 and 14% of everyone charged with any crime.[@snd26] The government's evaluation says the law reduced police and court action over minor cannabis conduct.[@snd26]
Uruguay has no old cannabis tradition of its own; its genetics are new.[@uyxxi] Licensed growers have been breeding national varieties, and the seed institute [INASE](https://www.inase.uy/) had more than 40 Uruguayan cultivars on its register in 2025, up from 11 a year earlier.[@uyxxi] About 88% are psychoactive, bred by at least ten companies, licensed producers and membership clubs.[@uyxxi] Seeds and cuttings may only move inside the regulated system.[@d120]
Wiktionary — faso (Lunfardo slang: a marijuana cigarette) Wiktionary — porro (a marijuana cigarette) Wiktionary — yerba (grass; slang: marijuana) 13 unchanged
word Faso · lang Uruguayan Spanish · meaning Lunfardo slang for a marijuana cigarette · sources wiktionary-faso, word Porro · lang Uruguayan Spanish · meaning a marijuana cigarette (joint, spliff, blunt) · sources wiktionary-porro, word Hierba · lang Uruguayan Spanish · meaning literally grass; slang for marijuana · sources wiktionary-yerba