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Law 30 of 1986

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Head-and-shoulders portrait of a grey-haired man in glasses, a dark suit and tie, standing at a microphone.
Belisario Betancur, the president who signed the law, in April 1985.
Belisario Betancur, the president who signed the law, in April 1985.
Law 30 of 1986
Ley 30 de 1986, por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones
Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes
Instrument
TypeLaw
NumberLey 30 de 1986
JurisdictionColombia
Enacted byCongress of Colombia
Adopted31 January 1986 (sanction)
PlaceBogotá
In force from31 January 1986
Status
StatusIn force
Amended byLaw 365 of 1997 (arts. 33 and 34); articles 51 and 87 struck down by the Constitutional Court in 1994
Cannabis
Personal dose up to 20 g of marijuana or 5 g of hashish (art. 2(j)); a plantation is more than 20 plants (art. 2(ñ)); growing only for medical and scientific ends, under licence (arts. 3, 5, 6); indigenous traditional use to be regulated (art. 7); growing offence (art. 32)
Text
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Law 30 of 1986 (Ley 30 de 1986) is the Colombian statute that adopted the Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes (National Narcotics Statute). Congress passed it and President Belisario Betancur signed it in Bogotá on 31 January 1986, and it took effect on that day, the date of its sanction.[1] The law sets a personal dose of up to 20 grams of marijuana or 5 grams of hashish,[2] defines a plantation as more than 20 plants,[3] and allows the plants that yield narcotic drugs to be grown only for medical and scientific ends, under a licence from the National Narcotics Council.[4] In 1994 the Constitutional Court struck down its article punishing the carrying and use of a personal dose.[5] The statute remains in force, amended; Decree 2467 of 2015, which set up the licensing of medical cannabis, regulated four of its articles.[6]

Background

Colombia acceded to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and its 1972 Protocol on 3 March 1975, and to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances on 12 May 1981.[7][8][9] In the government's statement of reasons for the bill, which Colombia sent to the United Nations with the law, the bill was to bring the existing drug legislation together in one body, grade penalties by the social harm of each offence and set procedures for destroying crops. It proposed to turn into ordinary law some measures issued under the state-of-siege powers of article 121 of the Constitution, chiefly Decrees 1041, 1055, 1060 and 1061 of 1984, and called the statute then in force, Decree-Law 1188 of 1974, "inadequate".[10]: 2

Luis Felipe Cruz Olivera and Isabel Pereira Arana, of the Bogotá research centre Dejusticia, see in the law the influence of the 1961 and 1971 conventions. In their account it created the framework for prevention campaigns, set controls on substances that produce dependence, gave the National Narcotics Council its powers over drug policy and raised the penalties for drug offences.[11]: 61–62

The 1974 statute

Under extraordinary powers granted by Law 17 of 1973, the president issued Decree 1188 of 25 June 1974, published on 8 July, as the first Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes. Its article 7 defined a plantation as "una pluralidad de plantas en proceso de desarrollo" (a plurality of plants in the course of growth) from which drugs producing physical or psychic dependence could be extracted. Growing or keeping a plant from which marijuana or another such drug could be extracted, without the permission of the competent authority, carried two to eight years of imprisonment; carrying a quantity that amounted to a personal dose carried one month to two years of arrest.[12] Article 6 defined the personal dose as the amount of a drug that a person "ordinariamente" (ordinarily) takes at one time, and article 39 left its determination to a forensic medical examination.[13]

Article 101 of Law 30 repeals "las disposiciones que le sean contrarias" (the provisions contrary to it), without listing them.[1] A compilation of Colombian legislation prints the 1974 decree with the note that Law 30 of 1986 repealed it.[14]

Cannabis in the text

Definitions

Article 2 gives sixteen definitions. None of them is of marijuana, hashish or the cannabis plant: the law uses the words without defining them.[15] The definitions that govern cannabis are these:

  • Estupefaciente (narcotic drug): "la droga no prescrita médicamente, que actúa sobre el sistema nervioso central produciendo dependencia" (a drug not medically prescribed that acts on the central nervous system, producing dependence), lit. b.[15]
  • Dosis para uso personal (dose for personal use): the quantity of narcotic drugs a person carries or keeps for their own consumption. It is "la cantidad de marihuana que no exceda de veinte (20) gramos; la de marihuana hachís la que no exceda de cinco (5) gramos". A drug carried for distribution or sale is not a personal dose, whatever its quantity (lit. j).[2]
  • Plantación (plantation): "la pluralidad de plantas, en número superior a veinte (20) de las que pueden extraerse drogas que causen dependencia" (a plurality of plants, more than twenty, from which drugs causing dependence can be extracted), lit. ñ.[3]
  • Cultivo (cultivation): the activity aimed at developing a plantation in that sense, lit. o.[15]

Growing, seed and licences

Article 3 limits the production, trade, use and possession of narcotic drugs, and the growing of the plants they come from, to medical and scientific ends, under rules issued by the Ministry of Health. Under article 5 the National Narcotics Council (Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes), with the ministries of Agriculture and Health, regulates the areas where such plants are grown, and the plants may be grown only under the council's licence. Article 6 requires the council's prior authorisation to hold seed for growing them, in quantities the council sets. Article 8 lets the council order any unlicensed plantation destroyed or authorise its use for lawful ends. The council is attached to the Ministry of Justice (art. 89).[4]

Traditional use

Article 7 directs the council to regulate the growing of plants from which narcotic drugs are produced, and their consumption, by indigenous peoples "de acuerdo con los usos y prácticas derivadas de su tradición y cultura" (in accordance with the uses and practices derived from their tradition and culture).[4] The article covers every plant that yields a narcotic drug. Article 88, the law's crop-substitution clause, directs the government to promote substitution programmes for indigenous people and settlers who had grown coca before the statute came into force.[10]: 21

Offences and destruction

Article 32 makes it an offence to grow, keep or finance plantations of marijuana or of any other plant from which a drug producing dependence can be obtained, or to hold more than one kilogram of the seed of such plants, without the permission of the competent authority. The penalty is four to twelve years in prison and a fine of 10 to 400 monthly minimum wages; where the plants number more than 20 and not more than 100, it is one to three years and a fine of 1 to 40 minimum wages.[16]

Article 33, as enacted, punished bringing into or taking out of the country, carrying, storing, selling or supplying a drug producing dependence with four to twelve years in prison, "except as indicated with regard to the dose for personal use", in the United Nations' English translation; above the personal dose and up to 1,000 grams of marijuana or 200 grams of hashish, the penalty was one to three years.[10]: 10 Article 38 doubled the minimum penalties where more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana or 100 kilograms of hashish were seized.[17]

Article 51 punished carrying, keeping for one's own use or consuming cocaine, marijuana or any other drug producing dependence in a quantity counted as a personal dose: up to 30 days' arrest and a fine of half a monthly minimum wage for a first offence, and one month to one year's arrest for a second within twelve months.[10]: 14

Article 77 orders the judicial police to destroy "las plantaciones de marihuana, cocaína, adormidera y demás plantas de las cuales pueda producirse droga que produzca dependencia, existentes en el territorio nacional" (the plantations of marijuana, coca, poppy and other plants from which a drug producing dependence can be produced that exist in the national territory), after identifying the plantation by expert means, recording the plot and the people found there, and taking samples; the plantation is then destroyed "mediante el empleo del procedimiento científico adecuado" (by the appropriate scientific procedure).[16]

Amendment history

The 1994 ruling

In Sentencia C-221 of 5 May 1994 the Constitutional Court upheld the personal-dose definition of article 2(j) and declared articles 51 and 87 unconstitutional. Article 87 had sent people affected by drug consumption who had committed no offence to treatment establishments.[5] The Court held that "las normas que hacen del consumo de droga un delito, son claramente inconstitucionales" (the rules that make drug consumption a crime are clearly unconstitutional), on the ground of the right to the free development of personality.[5]

Main article: Cannabis law in Colombia#The personal dose

Later changes

  • Law 365 of 1997 rewrote article 33: the basic penalty became six to twenty years in prison, and the one-to-three-year tier now applies where the drug does not exceed 1,000 grams of marijuana or 200 grams of hashish.[18]
  • The Penal Code of 2000 (Law 599) sets the offence of growing, keeping or financing plantations of marijuana in its article 375.[19] Law 1453 of 2011 rewrote the trafficking offence of article 376,[20] and the Constitutional Court upheld the new article in Sentencia C-491 of 2012 on the understanding that it does not punish carrying a dose meant solely for personal consumption.[21]
  • Acto Legislativo 02 of 2009 added to article 49 of the Constitution that carrying and consuming narcotic or psychotropic substances is prohibited except on medical prescription.[22]
  • Law 1787 of 2016 added to articles 375, 376 and 377 of the Penal Code that their penalties do not apply to the medical and scientific use of cannabis under licence, and put the Ministry of Agriculture on the National Narcotics Council.[23]
    Main article: Law 1787 of 2016

Implementation

Decree 2467 of 22 December 2015 regulated articles 3, 5, 6 and 8 of the law. It set up licences for holding cannabis seed for sowing and for growing cannabis plants, granted by the National Narcotics Council, and licences for producing and manufacturing derivatives and for exporting them, granted by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, all for strictly medical and scientific ends.[6] Cruz Olivera and Pereira Arana write that the government took almost thirty years to regulate the medical uses the statute had allowed, and that no new law was needed for it, since Law 30 had authorised those uses since 1986.[24]: 128–129

Article 20 gives the Ministry of Health the task of listing the drugs and medicines that produce dependence and must be under special control.[25] The ministry's lists, as updated by Resolution 116 of 2026, place cannabis in Lists I and IV: the flowering or fruiting tops of the plant, leaving out the seeds and the leaves not attached to the tops, and cannabis derivatives containing 0.2 per cent THC or more.[26]

Decree 1844 of 2018 set a police procedure for people found carrying or holding illicit psychoactive substances such as marijuana in quantities that "las normas vigentes determinan como dosis personal" (the rules in force set as the personal dose).[27] Decree 2114 of 7 December 2023 repealed it.[28]

Effect on cultivation and traditional use

Cruz Olivera and Pereira Arana write that the National Narcotics Council's decisions took Colombia into the forced eradication of illicit crops by spraying chemicals over rural populations, under article 77's duty to destroy every illicit plantation in the country.[11]: 62 Following a study by Filomena and Uprimny, they describe the years from 1986 to the 1994 ruling as the most restrictive period in the Supreme Court's handling of the personal dose, when a person carrying more than the threshold was presumed guilty.[11]: 65

Isabel Pereira Arana and Sergio Pérez of Dejusticia write that from 1986 until some years after the 1991 Constitution, personal use could mean up to a year in prison and fines of half a minimum wage. In their figures, the police issued 1,188,906 citations (comparendos) for carrying and consuming drugs in public space between 2017 and 2022, and 99.6 per cent of the marijuana seizures were of quantities below the 20-gram minimum dose.[29]

Cruz Olivera and Pereira Arana describe urban home growers as relying on the statute, which in their reading allows up to 20 cannabis plants to be kept.[30]: 116

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 101 and the sanction (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 2, lit. j (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 2, lit. ñ (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, arts. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 89 (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Sentencia C-221/94. Corte Constitucional de Colombia (5 May 1994). Expediente D-429; resolutive part, arts. 51 and 87 of Ley 30 de 1986. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Por el cual se reglamentan los aspectos de que tratan los artículos 3, 5, 6 y 8 de la Ley 30 de 1986(Decreto No. 2467), 22 December 2015, arts. 1 and 3 (Diario Oficial No. 49.734, 22 December 2015).Colombia, Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  7. ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 15. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  8. ↑ "Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 17. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
  9. ↑ "Convention on Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 16. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Secretary-General of the United Nations (20 August 1987). Laws and regulations promulgated to give effect to the provisions of the international treaties on narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances: Colombia (PDF) (Report). E/NL.1986/12. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Cruz Olivera, Luis Felipe; Pereira Arana, Isabel (November 2021). "La marihuana en Colombia: historia, ilegalidad y consumo". Laberintos de prohibición y regulación: los grises de la marihuana en Colombia. Colección Dejusticia (in español). Bogotá: Editorial Dejusticia. pp. 44–79. ISBN 978-958-5597-98-3.
  12. ↑ Por el cual se expide el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes(Decreto No. 1188), 25 June 1974, preamble; arts. 7, 37 and 38 (Diario Oficial No. 34.116, 8 July 1974).Colombia.Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  13. ↑ Por el cual se expide el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes(Decreto No. 1188), 25 June 1974, arts. 6 and 39 (Diario Oficial No. 34.116, 8 July 1974).Colombia.Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  14. ↑ Por el cual se expide el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes(Decreto No. 1188), 25 June 1974, note of repeal (Diario Oficial No. 34.116, 8 July 1974).Colombia.Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 2 (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, arts. 32 and 77 (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  17. ↑ Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 38 (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  18. ↑ Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 33 as amended by Ley 365 de 1997, art. 17 (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  19. ↑ Por la cual se expide el Código Penal(Ley No. 599), 24 July 2000, art. 375 (Diario Oficial No. 44.097, 24 July 2000).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  20. ↑ Por medio de la cual se reforma el Código Penal, el Código de Procedimiento Penal, el Código de Infancia y Adolescencia, las reglas sobre extinción de dominio y se dictan otras disposiciones en materia de seguridad(Ley No. 1453), 24 June 2011, art. 11 (Diario Oficial No. 48.110, 24 June 2011).Colombia.Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  21. ↑ Sentencia C-491/12. Corte Constitucional de Colombia (28 June 2012). Expedientes D-8834 and D-8842 (acumulados); resolutive part. Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  22. ↑ Por el cual se reforma el artículo 49 de la Constitución Política(Acto Legislativo No. 02), 21 December 2009, art. 1 (Diario Oficial No. 47.570, 21 December 2009).Colombia.Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  23. ↑ Por medio de la cual se reglamenta el Acto Legislativo 02 de 2009(Ley No. 1787), 6 July 2016, arts. 4 and 12–14 (Diario Oficial No. 49.926, 6 July 2016).Colombia.Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  24. ↑ Cruz Olivera, Luis Felipe; Pereira Arana, Isabel (November 2021). "Limpiando a María: abrir el mercado para la marihuana medicinal en Colombia". Laberintos de prohibición y regulación: los grises de la marihuana en Colombia. Colección Dejusticia (in español). Bogotá: Editorial Dejusticia. pp. 126–145. ISBN 978-958-5597-98-3.
  25. ↑ Por la cual se adopta el Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes y se dictan otras disposiciones(Ley No. 30), 31 January 1986, art. 20, lit. e (Diario Oficial No. 37.335, 5 February 1986).Colombia.Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  26. ↑ Por la cual se modifica el artículo 4 y los anexos técnicos adoptados en el artículo 2 de la Resolución 315 de 2020, para actualizar los listados de estupefacientes, psicotrópicos, precursores y demás sustancias sometidas a fiscalización, de aquellas clasificadas como monopolio del Estado y de los medicamentos de control especial de uso humano y veterinario, y se dictan otras disposiciones(Resolución No. 116), 27 January 2026, annex, entry 135 (p. 9).Colombia, Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social.Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  27. ↑ Luvi Katherine Miranda Peña y Andrés Felipe Yepes Guzmán v. Nación – Presidencia de la República y otros. Consejo de Estado, Sala de lo Contencioso Administrativo, Sección Primera (15 October 2019). Radicación 11001-03-24-000-2018-00387-00 y 11001-03-24-000-2018-00399-00 (acumulados); auto que resuelve medida cautelar. Retrieved 1 November 2026.
  28. ↑ "Decreto 2114 de 2023". Gestor Normativo (in español). Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública. 7 December 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  29. ↑ Pereira Arana, Isabel; Pérez, Sergio (6 May 2024). "Avances y paradojas: 30 años de la despenalización del uso y porte personal de drogas" (in español). Dejusticia. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  30. ↑ Cruz Olivera, Luis Felipe; Pereira Arana, Isabel (November 2021). "Mercados grises de marihuana: las oportunidades de la regulación". Laberintos de prohibición y regulación: los grises de la marihuana en Colombia. Colección Dejusticia (in español). Bogotá: Editorial Dejusticia. pp. 110–125. ISBN 978-958-5597-98-3.
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