Latin America’s Cannabis Market Transformation: $440M Today, $1B+ by 2028

What does this mean for the global cannabis industry?

The $440 million figure demands attention. Latin America’s legal cannabis market reached that valuation in 2024 — a 50% single-year increase — and analysts project it will approach $1 billion by 2028 as domestic cultivation scales and new product categories reach pharmacy shelves across the region. This is not speculative growth. It is being driven by concrete regulatory actions that have occurred in the last eighteen months: Brazil’s ANVISA unanimously authorizing domestic cultivation for the first time in the country’s history, Colombia’s Ministry of Health permitting dried cannabis flower sales through licensed pharmacies, Uruguay recording 4,290 kilograms sold through its state-regulated pharmacy network in 2025, and Argentina restructuring its REPROCANN patient registry under updated ministerial resolution.

The regulatory architecture that makes this growth possible is materially different from what existed even three years ago. Five countries now operate formal medical cannabis licensing frameworks with government agencies issuing cultivation, production, and commercialization authorizations under national law. Two of those frameworks — Brazil’s and Colombia’s — underwent significant expansion in 2025 and early 2026. The third major market, Uruguay, is reviewing whether to extend its pharmacy access model to tourists, having already demonstrated that a state-regulated cannabis supply chain can sustain growth and expand pharmacy participation over more than a decade of legal operation.

For international investors and operators evaluating LATAM entry, the region’s combined value proposition is distinctive: production costs running up to 80% below North American benchmarks, a combined addressable population exceeding 400 million adults, and regulatory frameworks increasingly modeled on pharmaceutical-grade compliance rather than agricultural permitting. The window between early-mover advantage and competitive crowding is narrowing. This article examines the regulatory foundations country by country, then draws out the investment and compliance implications for operators considering the region.

The Regional Market: $440 Million and Accelerating

The Latin American cannabis market reached an estimated $440 million in 2024 — up 50% from the prior year — with Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico accounting for the largest shares. Industry analysts project the regional legal market will reach nearly $1 billion by 2028, driven primarily by the expansion of domestic cultivation capacity, new product categories reaching pharmacy channels, and continued patient base growth in Brazil and Argentina.

Latin America Cannabis Market Snapshot 2024–2030

Sources: CannaBusiness Plans regional market analysis; Straits Research Latin America Medical Cannabis Market; Grand View Research; Prohibition Partners LATAM Cannabis Report

The medical cannabis segment is the dominant driver of near-term value, with Straits Research valuing the Latin America medical cannabis market at US$1.53 billion in 2024 — a figure that encompasses broader medical product categories including CBD pharmaceuticals and phytotherapy products alongside plant-derived cannabis medicines. Whichever methodology one applies, the directional signal is consistent: the region is compounding at a CAGR of approximately 20–24% annually, and the regulatory openings of 2025–2026 have accelerated rather than slowed that trajectory.

Brazil: The Continental Anchor

Brazil’s medical cannabis market generated R$953 million (approximately US$187 million) in revenue in 2025, serving 873,000 registered patients — up 30% year over year — through a network of 55,000 authorized physicians, 315 patient associations, and more than 2,180 available products. No other country in Latin America combines scale at this level with the regulatory infrastructure that Brazil’s ANVISA has now put in place.

The defining event of 2026 is ANVISA’s authorization of domestic cannabis cultivation. Four resolutions published on February 3, 2026 — RDC 1,012 through 1,015 — collectively restructure every layer of Brazil’s cannabis framework, from research cultivation through pharmacy-level dispensation. As ANVISA confirmed on its official government website, the resolutions respond to a November 2024 Superior Court of Justice ruling affirming the legality of cannabis production for exclusively medicinal and pharmaceutical purposes.

Brazil’s 2026 ANVISA Regulatory Framework

Source: ANVISA — Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (gov.br/anvisa), February 2026

The cultivation framework is explicitly pharmaceutical in its compliance model. Authorized cultivators under RDC 1,013 must implement seed-to-product traceability documenting the complete chain of custody from genetic origin through harvest, processing, and product distribution. Per-batch laboratory testing before entry into the supply chain is mandatory. Good Agricultural Practices and Good Manufacturing Practices compliance is required simultaneously. THC threshold violations — plants exceeding 0.3% — require mandatory destruction with no exceptions.

For a deeper analysis of Brazil’s regulatory trajectory and the R$15 billion long-term market projection, see GrowerIQ’s dedicated post on Brazil’s R$15 billion cannabis opportunity and 673,000-patient market.

Colombia: From Export Monoculture to Domestic Pharmacy Sales

Colombia was Latin America’s first significant cannabis export economy. Law 1787 of 2016 and its implementing Decreto 613 of 2017 — issued by the Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social — established the continent’s most commercially oriented cultivation framework, enabling licensed producers to cultivate, process, and export cannabis derivatives under licenses issued by INVIMA (derivatives) and the Ministry of Justice (cultivation). By 2023, Colombia’s medical cannabis exports had reached US$10.8 million, with Brazil accounting for 32% of export volume.

Decreto 613/2017 established five-year renewable licenses, mandated traceability as a core licensing requirement, and assigned regulatory authority across multiple ministries in a deliberately export-oriented framework. The result was a sector with approximately 1,000 licensed companies by 2023 — though only around 40 were operational — and strong positioning as a low-cost global supplier. Colombia’s climate and agricultural infrastructure support production costs that are competitive on a global basis, and ProColombia has projected that medical cannabis exports could contribute more than US$1.7 billion annually by 2030.

Decreto 1138 of 2025: Opening the Domestic Market

The domestic market has historically been underdeveloped relative to Colombia’s export capacity. Decreto 1138 of October 27, 2025 — issued by the Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social — changes that calculus directly. The decree authorizes dried cannabis flower as a finished medical product that can be dispensed through licensed pharmacies under medical prescription. This is the first time Colombia’s regulatory framework has explicitly recognized flower as a medical product format for domestic consumption.

Key provisions of Decreto 1138/2025:

• Pharmacy flower dispensing: Dried cannabis flower may be sold in licensed pharmacies and drugstores under medical prescription with full health authorization
• SME priority period: For the first two years of implementation, micro, small, and medium-sized cultivators have exclusive rights to supply cannabis flowers to Colombia’s domestic medical market — a structural protection for rural and small-scale producers
• Technical regulation timeline: The Ministry of Health has five months from the decree’s entry into force to publish technical regulations governing flower as a finished product
• Veterinary applications: The decree introduces Colombia’s first explicit framework for cannabis-based veterinary products, with ICA designated as the certification authority
• 100% Colombian sourcing requirement: All flower sold domestically must originate from licensed Colombian cultivators, protecting the domestic supply chain

For a full analysis of the decree’s patient access and pharmacy implementation implications, see GrowerIQ’s post on Colombia’s Decreto 1138 and pharmacy cannabis flower sales.

Uruguay: Twelve Years of Proof

Uruguay’s Law 19.172, promulgated December 20, 2013, made Uruguay the first country in the world to establish full state regulation and control of cannabis — covering cultivation, production, distribution, and sale for adult use. The law established IRCCA (Instituto de Regulación y Control del Cannabis) as the supervisory body and created three access channels: home cultivation (up to six plants), cannabis clubs (6–45 members), and pharmacy dispensation for registered adults.

Twelve years later, the pharmacy channel is demonstrating compounding growth. According to IRCCA’s official year-end data, Uruguayan pharmacies sold 4,290 kilograms of cannabis in 2025 — a 34% increase over 2023’s 3,207 kilograms — through a network of 55 participating pharmacies serving 83,567 registered adult purchasers as of December 31, 2025. The IRCCA data also documents active licenses across cultivation, industrialization, research, services, and laboratory operations, concentrated primarily in Montevideo, Canelones, and Colonia departments.

For GrowerIQ’s detailed breakdown of Uruguay’s 2025 pharmacy sales record and its implications for regulated cannabis markets globally, see the post on Uruguay’s record 4,290 kg in pharmacy cannabis sales.

Uruguay’s model is increasingly relevant to investors not for its market size — the country of 3.5 million represents a fraction of the regional opportunity — but for its proof of concept. The pharmacy channel has delivered consistent, growing, traceable revenue over more than a decade. IRCCA purchase limits (10g per week, 40g per month), standardized 5-gram packaging with health warnings, and detailed registry data make Uruguay’s market the most thoroughly documented state-regulated cannabis system in the world.

In late 2025, IRCCA confirmed it is analyzing whether to extend pharmacy access to tourists — a change that would represent the next significant evolution of the model and has been described as "central to the discussion" within the agency.

Argentina: Scale With Regulatory Turbulence

Argentina has the continent’s second-largest REPROCANN patient registry, with over 200,000 registered individuals accessing medical cannabis through the Ministry of Health’s national program under Law 27.350. The REPROCANN system permits self-cultivation, third-party cultivators, and civil association access — one of the most permissive personal cultivation frameworks in the region.

Resolution 1780/2025 (Official Gazette, May 23, 2025) substantially updated REPROCANN’s operating rules: autocultivator permits extended to three-year validity, organizational permits shortened to one year with stricter documentation, and new oversight introduced for the "cultivador solidario" model following documented instances of misuse. Existing registrants had six months to comply.

The institutional environment introduces significant uncertainty. In 2025, ARICCAME — the commercial cannabis licensing body — was effectively dissolved, and Decree 462/2025 removed core regulatory competencies from its mandate, leaving the commercial cultivation and manufacturing licensing pathway in limbo even as the patient registry grows. Operators should clearly distinguish between REPROCANN’s established patient pathway and the currently uncertain commercial licensing environment.

For context on Argentina’s cultivation regulatory history, see GrowerIQ’s analysis of cannabis cultivation regulations in Argentina.

Peru: Early-Stage Framework With Structured Licensing

Peru’s medical cannabis framework, established by Laws 30681 and 31312 and implemented through Decreto Supremo 004-2023-SA, designates DIGEMID (Dirección General de Medicamentos, Insumos y Drogas) as the primary licensing authority. DIGEMID issues production, research, importation, commercialization, and artisanal cooperative cultivation licenses. As of mid-2025, 27 marketing authorizations had been granted — four pharmaceutical medicines and 23 natural products — with distribution restricted exclusively to licensed pharmacies. Commercial sales from artisanal/associative cultivation are prohibited; those products are available only within qualifying patient associations. A national DIGEMID patient registry tracks authorized access.

Regional Investment Thesis: What the Numbers Mean

Country-by-Country Regulatory Summary

Three Structural Advantages That Distinguish LATAM

Cost structure. Production costs in Colombia, Peru, and Brazil are documented at 60–80% below North American benchmarks due to climate, labor costs, and year-round cultivation cycles. For operators building export-oriented supply chains or seeking to compete on finished product pricing in growing domestic markets, this is not an incidental advantage — it is a structural position.

Regulatory convergence. Five national regulatory frameworks have now independently arrived at similar core requirements: licensed cultivation, traceability from seed to product, mandatory testing, and pharmacy-based dispensation. This convergence creates a playbook that compliance-capable operators can adapt across borders. A company with GMP-grade traceability infrastructure in Colombia can transfer significant compliance knowledge to Brazil’s August 2026 cultivation requirements.

Market size trajectory. The Straits Research Latin America Medical Cannabis Market report values the regional medical market at US$1.53 billion in 2024, growing at a 23.89% CAGR through 2033. CannaBusiness Plans’ regional analysis specifically identifies the total legal cannabis market at US$440 million in 2024 (up 50% year over year), projecting approach to US$1 billion by 2028. ProColombia projects Colombia’s medical cannabis exports alone at US$1.7 billion annually by 2030. Brazil’s medical market carries a projected ceiling of R$15 billion by 2034. These are not the same market — they are additive projections for different segments — but together they illustrate the scale of the regional opportunity.

Key Risks to Monitor

• Argentina’s commercial licensing gap. ARICCAME’s dissolution has created uncertainty for operators seeking commercial licenses beyond REPROCANN’s patient pathway. Monitor for regulatory replacement mechanisms.
• Colombia’s 5-month technical regulation window. Decreto 1138/2025 mandated technical regulations for flower as a finished product within five months of the decree’s October 2025 entry into force. That deadline falls in March 2026. Confirmation that those regulations have been published is a prerequisite before committing to pharmacy-distribution strategies in Colombia.
• Brazil’s compliance infrastructure requirement. RDC 1,013’s seed-to-product traceability, georeferenced facility documentation, and per-batch laboratory testing requirements are not achievable with generic ERP or agricultural management software. Operators who treat compliance infrastructure as a post-authorization consideration will face operational gaps immediately upon the August 4, 2026 effective date.
• Uruguay’s resident-only policy. IRCCA is analyzing tourist access, but as of May 2026 the resident-only rule remains in effect. The current market is capped by registered-purchaser demographics rather than product demand.

How GrowerIQ Supports LATAM Cannabis Operators

The regulatory convergence across Latin America is creating a compliance infrastructure challenge that GrowerIQ’s seed-to-sale platform was built to address. Every framework examined here — Brazil’s RDC 1,013 georeferenced traceability, Colombia’s SEED system under Decreto 1138, Uruguay’s IRCCA dispensation records, Peru’s DIGEMID patient registry — requires end-to-end chain of custody documentation from cultivation through patient-level dispensation. Spreadsheets and generic agricultural tools do not meet these mandates. Pharmaceutical-grade compliance audit trails are the operating baseline, not a premium feature.

Through its strategic alliance with Milgrows, GrowerIQ has established in-country operations in Brazil ahead of the August 4, 2026 cultivation effective date, providing traceability infrastructure designed specifically for ANVISA’s RDC 1,013 requirements — georeferenced facility documentation, per-batch laboratory testing workflows, THC threshold monitoring, and pharmacovigilance reporting. The same infrastructure is transferable across the LATAM regulatory landscape.

The $440 million market that exists today was built on import-dependent models and early-stage licensing frameworks. The infrastructure for what comes next — domestic cultivation at pharmaceutical-grade compliance, pharmacy networks serving hundreds of thousands of patients, and regional supply chains leveraging LATAM’s structural cost advantages — is being built in regulatory texts right now. The operators who build compliant infrastructure correctly will not just participate in LATAM’s cannabis market. They will define it.

This analysis is current as of May 2026 and draws on official regulatory sources including ANVISA’s RDC 1,012–1,015/2026 (gov.br/anvisa, February 2026), Colombia’s Ministerio de Salud Decreto 1138 of October 27, 2025 (gestornormativo.funcionpublica.gov.co), Uruguay’s IRCCA official year-end 2025 data (ircca.gub.uy), Argentina’s Ministry of Health Resolución 1780/2025 (boletinoficial.gob.ar, May 23, 2025), Peru’s DIGEMID regulatory portal (digemid.minsa.gob.pe), and Colombia’s Decreto 613 of 2017 (minsalud.gov.co). Regional market figures are drawn from CannaBusiness Plans, Straits Research, Grand View Research, and ProColombia’s published projections. Figures reflect the best available data as of the publication date.

Sources

• ANVISA — Anvisa publica regras para produção de cannabis medicinal — Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (official)
• Decreto 1138 de 2025 — Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social — Función Pública Colombia (official)
• Decreto 613 de 2017 — Cannabis medicinal Colombia — Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social (official)
• IRCCA — Resumen de datos del cannabis de uso adulto al 31/12/2025 — IRCCA Uruguay (official)
• Ley N° 19172 — Regulación y Control del Cannabis — IMPO Uruguay (official)
• Resolución 1780/2025 — REPROCANN actualización — Boletín Oficial Argentina (official)
• DIGEMID — Uso Medicinal del Cannabis y sus Derivados — Ministerio de Salud Perú (official)
• ProColombia — Cannabis medicinal aportaría más de US$1,700 millones en exportaciones al 2030 — ProColombia (official trade promotion agency)
• Latin America and the Caribbean Cannabis Markets — CannaBusiness Plans
• Latin America Medical Cannabis Market Size & Analysis — Straits Research
• Colombia cannabis exports reach $10.8M — MJBizDaily
• Colombia Authorizes Exports of Dried Cannabis Flower for Medicine — Cannabis Business Times
• GrowerIQ — Brazil R$15 Billion Cannabis Opportunity
• GrowerIQ — Colombia Decreto 1138 Pharmacy Cannabis
• GrowerIQ — Uruguay Cannabis Pharmacy Sales 2025
• GrowerIQ — Cannabis Cultivation in Argentina