Narcotics Act
Betäubungsmittelgesetz (BtMG)

Act on Transactions Involving Narcotics (Narcotics Act – BtMG) of 1 March 1994, last amended by Art. 1 of the Ordinance of 14 February 2007

The Act defines the terms (narcotics, substances, preparations and other terms) and empowers the Federal Government and the Federal Minister of Health to amend or to extend the list of substances and preparations when this is necessary because of the extent of abusive consumption and because of a direct or indirect threat to human health.

The Act also determines the obligations in handling and marketing narcotics, includes rules for their supervision, determines the rules for public authorities and defines offences, sentences as well as administrative offences.

• Pursuant to the Act, a person over the age of 21 who unlawfully supplies or dispenses or hands over narcotics to a person under the age of 18 for direct consumption, commits an offence which is punishable by a prison sentence of not less than one year.
• A person who unlawfully cultivates, produces, trades in, imports or exports narcotics as a member of a gang which has been formed for a persistent perpetration of such acts, commits an offence which is punishable by a prison sentence of not less than five years.
• A person over the age of 21 is likewise deemed to have committed a punishable offence when such a person instructs another person below the age of 18 to engage in the unlawful trade in, to import without trading in, to export, to sell, to hand over or otherwise market narcotics.