The story · written by gpt-5.6-sol-medium,
Thirty-seven opposition deputies asked Chile’s Constitutional Court to stop part of a drug-law reform that Congress had already approved. Their filing, dated 13 April 2026, argued that the provision was too vague and could expose cannabis users and medical growers to trafficking penalties.
A new test for small amounts
The challenged provision came from merged bills 15.347-07 and 16.430-07. It would allow trafficking penalties to apply even when a person held a small quantity if the drug was capable of causing serious toxic effects or considerable harm to health.
That would shift the legal test away from quantity alone. According to BioBioChile, the deputies objected that the text did not clearly exclude acts connected with personal or medical cannabis use. Cannabis remained classified as a substance capable of producing serious harm under Decree 867, making the wording especially important for people who use or grow it.
The constitutional challenge
The deputies asked the court to review numeral 1 of the reform’s sole article. They said it could let conduct associated with consumption be treated as trafficking and argued that its open-ended language failed to tell people clearly which acts would be criminal.
Their filing invoked six constitutional protections. The objections described by BioBioChile included proportionality, privacy in the home and the risk that the rule would deter people from pursuing medical treatment involving cannabis. The challenge was therefore about both the severity of the possible punishment and the uncertainty over who could face it.
What the court could do
The Constitutional Court first had to decide whether the filing was admissible. If accepted, it would then consider the substance of the deputies’ claims. A successful challenge would prevent the disputed provision from becoming law in that form.
At the time of the filing, the reform had passed Congress but had not yet been promulgated. The challenge did not itself repeal an existing rule or create a new right for cannabis users; it opened another stage in deciding whether the tougher language could take effect.
In the index
The court application did not change Chile’s six scores. This is a context entry because the disputed reform had not yet been promulgated on 13 April. The later enactment is recorded separately rather than being treated as settled by the filing itself.[1]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Chile here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.