The story · written by gpt-5.6-sol-medium,
Colombia’s latest attempt to regulate adult-use cannabis cleared its first legislative test in May 2026. The House of Representatives’ First Committee approved the bill unanimously, but several stages still stood between that vote and a legal market.
The ninth attempt
Bill 023 of 2025 was the ninth cannabis-regulation proposal debated by Congress since 2020. Every earlier proposal had been shelved during the legislative process.
Representative Alejandro Ocampo presented the new bill as a way to keep cannabis away from children, reduce the illegal market and include rural, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities that have long lived with the crop.
After the committee vote, the proposal was due for a second debate in the full House. Approval there would send it to the Senate. Infobae reported that the crowded parliamentary calendar could push further debate into the legislature beginning on 20 July 2026.
A regulated market
The bill proposes a complete chain from cultivation to licensed sale. Dispensaries and specialised pharmacies could sell to adults in person or online, using identity checks and digital traceability. Advertising, promotion and sponsorship would be barred outside digital spaces directed only at adults.
The proposal would impose a 20% consumption tax. At least half of legally distributed flower would have to come from associations of traditional ethnic and peasant growers, and 70% of cultivation licences would be reserved for those communities.
Growing and clubs
An adult could grow up to 20 plants at home for non-commercial personal use. Commercial growers would need a licence and would be subject to agricultural, environmental and cultivation-plan requirements.
Non-profit cannabis clubs could have between 10 and 350 registered adult members and grow up to 200 plants solely for them. Retail purchases would be capped at 20 g of flower or 5 g of concentrates per day, with a larger registered exception of up to 500 g of flower in justified cases.
Minors would be excluded from production, distribution and use. Consumption would be restricted within 100 metres of schools, playgrounds, sports centres and religious sites, and driving under the influence would remain prohibited.
In the index
One committee approval did not legalise sales, clubs or home growing. Colombia’s score therefore does not move. The entry records another live proposal after the Senate shelved the previous attempt in 2023.[1]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Colombia here.
References
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