Colombia: penalty tables, citations, recreational/hemp, medical history, culture

possession 4 · cultivation 5 · enforcement 4 · sharing 2 · consumption 5 · access 0

Medical access already scored 1 for oils and extracts; dried flower widens the product range without changing the score.

The 'personal dose' of up to 20 g of cannabis (5 g of hashish) cannot be punished: in Sentencia C-221/94 the Constitutional Court ruled in 1994 that personal use is protected by the right to free development of personality.[@c221] The 20 g threshold comes from Law 30 of 1986, the main narcotics statute; a 2009 constitutional amendment tried to re-prohibit possession, but the court has kept the personal-dose framework intact.[@law30,lc] Courts have also protected somewhat larger amounts when clearly for personal supply.[@lc] Police can still confiscate in some public settings.[@cato] [The court protected the personal dose in 1994.](/history/colombia-personal-dose-1994/) [Law 30 defined the dose in 1986.](/history/colombia-law-30-1986/)

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Up to 20 plants may be grown exclusively for personal use. The written rules explicitly ex … 2015 that up to twenty personal-use plants did not constitute the cultivation crime.[@cr] [Twenty plants were confirmed personal in 2015.](/history/colombia-twenty-plants-2015/)

Users within the personal dose are not prosecuted under Sentencia C-221/94, though stops, searches and confiscation are common.[@c221,cato] Trafficking carries long prison sentences.[@cato] [The court protected the personal dose in 1994.](/history/colombia-personal-dose-1994/)

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Buying and selling are illegal, and there is no rule protecting gifts.[@lc] Passing cannabis to another person can be treated as supply.[@cato] [The court protected the personal dose in 1994.](/history/colombia-personal-dose-1994/)

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The Constitutional Court struck down the blanket ban on public consumption in 2019.[@c253] Use is allowed in public, but the police code and municipalities restrict it around schools, parks, sports venues and where children are present, with fines and confiscation.[@cato] [The court struck down the public-use ban in 2019.](/history/colombia-public-use-ruling-2019/)

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There is no legal adult-use market; bills to create one have repeatedly failed in Congress, most narrowly in the Senate.[@cato] Medical products are available through pharmacies and clinics on prescription.[@lc] [Colombia legalised medical cannabis in 2016.](/history/colombia-medical-2016/) [The Senate shelved the market bill in 2023.](/history/colombia-senate-shelves-2023/)

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Since 2016 the state licenses cultivation, manufacture and export of medical cannabis, and many companies hold licences.[@sen1787,lc] Nothing may be produced for the adult-use market.[@lc] Small and medium growers get quota priority and a share of manufacturing quotas.[@lc] [Colombia legalised medical cannabis in 2016.](/history/colombia-medical-2016/) [Cannabis opened to industrial use in 2021.](/history/colombia-industrial-use-2021/)

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Home-grown flower for yourself; prescription oils, extracts and — more recently — dried flower in the medical channel. No legal recreational products.

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Medical cannabis has been fully legal since 2016 under Law 1787, with prescriptions, product standards and patient access regulated by the health ministry.[@sen1787,lc] Any doctor can prescribe,; mostly compounded preparations, with partial insurance coverage in some cases.[@lc] Since a 2025 decree, pharmacies may also dispense medical flower on prescription.[@lc] [Colombia legalised medical cannabis in 2016.](/history/colombia-medical-2016/) [Pharmacies were authorised to sell medical flower in 2025.](/history/colombia-medical-flower-2025/)

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No record for personal use.[@c221] Police-code fines apply for use in restricted places.[@cato]

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Seeds for planting are handled under a justice ministry licence, and licensed producers may hand up to twenty seeds every six months to an unlicensed person to supply home growing.[@d811] Home growers, who may keep up to twenty plants, may not pass seeds or plants on to anyone else. Micropropagated plant material counts as seed for planting and stays within the licence system.[@d811] [Twenty plants were confirmed personal in 2015.](/history/colombia-twenty-plants-2015/)

The 2013 law punishes driving under the influence of alcohol or under the effects of psychoactive substances.[@ley1696] It sets graded blood-alcohol levels but no threshold for THC or any other drug: the driver's state is established by a non-invasive test defined by the national forensic institute.[@ley1696] The fines and licence suspensions are those of the alcohol scale, doubled for drivers of public-service vehicles, school transport and driving instructors.[@ley1696] Causing a death while driving under the effect of a drug, where that was decisive, raises the penalty for negligent homicide by two-thirds to double.[@ley1696]

There is no legal adult-use market for anyone, since bills to create one have repeatedly failed in Congress.[@cato] The personal-dose rules apply to whoever is in the country, but the only lawful supply is what a person grows; clubs that hand cannabis to members do so without legal cover.[@planteo]

All adult-use cannabis is bought illegally.[@et25] Bogotá is described as the main consumer market: the metropolitan police seized 3.7 tonnes of marijuana there in 2023, 3.6 tonnes in 2024 and about as much again by May 2025,[@et25] and say nearly all of it is for local use, sold in the districts of Suba, Bosa, Kennedy and Ciudad Bolívar.[@et25] One two-tonne load seized in May 2025 had come from the department of Cauca hidden in freight lorries, and police report marijuana flavoured with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.[@et25] No national seizure total was found.[@et25]

No count for cannabis alone was found, and the newest national figure located is from 2021:[@rn21] the prison service then listed 18,553 people held for trafficking, manufacturing or carrying drugs of all kinds, one of the commonest offences among prisoners.[@rn21]

LegalClarity — Is Marijuana Legal in Colombia? Laws for Locals & Tourists (8 August 2026) Corte Constitucional de Colombia — Sentencia C-221/94 Corte Constitucional de Colombia — Sentencia C-253/19 Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social — Colombia Ley 30 de 1986 (PDF) Secretaría del Senado — Colombia Ley 1787 de 2016 Cannabis and Cultural Groups in a Colombian Municipio Wikipedia — Cannabis in Colombia 9 unchanged

upto 20 g · treatment tolerated · term Personal-dose possession · note Cannot be punished; confiscation still possible in public, over 20 g · treatment criminal · term Possession beyond the personal dose · note Criminal prosecution; courts may still protect clearly personal supply

label Up to 20 plants for exclusive personal use · treatment tolerated · term Personal cultivation (autocultivo) · note Exempt from licensing and quotas; nothing may be sold or given away, label Larger or commercial growing · treatment criminal · term Unlawful cultivation · note Prosecuted as a drug crime

Decriminalised but with no market. Adults may carry up to 20 g and grow up to 20 plants for personal use under court protection, and public use is allowed outside restricted areas.[@c221,c253] Buying and selling stay illegal, and adult-use market bills have repeatedly failed in Congress.[@lc,cato] [The court protected the personal dose in 1994.](/history/colombia-personal-dose-1994/) [Colombia's Senate sank adult use a second time in 2023.](/history/colombia-senate-shelves-2023/)

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strict

Non-psychoactive cannabis has its own cultivation licence track under the medical and scientific system, with lower regulatory concern than psychoactive crops but still licence-bound.[@lc] There is no open unlicensed hemp regime.[@lc] [Cannabis opened to industrial use in 2021.](/history/colombia-industrial-use-2021/)

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Colombia's cannabis story was written in the Sierra Nevada. In 1972 an anthropologist found highland peasants — many of them families displaced by La Violencia — growing cannabis as a cash crop below the Santa Marta massif: a pound fetched 100 to 300 pesos against 12.50 for a kilo of coffee, and wealthy buyers moved large quantities to the coast, often for export to the United States.[@partridge] No local grower had yet been arrested — the police commissioner himself grew cannabis — though farmers knew American pressure had led to arrests elsewhere.[@partridge] The highland crop fed an export trade to the United States while the plant stayed criminal at home.[@partridge] [A field study found marijuana farming in the Sierra Nevada in 1973.](/history/colombia-santa-marta-cannabis-economy-1973/)

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