Cuban Teen Gets Eight Years for Carrying “El Quimico”
Justice or Punishment?
By Raul Medina Orama (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – Everyone has seen it on social media: people convulsing or staggering down some random street in Cuba, arching their bodies into shapes that seem impossible for a human being, or collapsing like a dead weight onto the ground after walking a few erratic steps. This is the effect of El Químico (“The Chemical”), the cheap, powerful drug that has been talked about for a few years now but whose exact composition remains largely unknown—beyond the government’s claim that it is a “synthetic cannabinoid.”
The images are so harsh and viral that the Communist Party’s controlled press has been forced to mention the phenomenon, which tarnishes the increasingly unsustainable image of the “socialist paradise” of good morals, free of “capitalist vices.” Authorities have promised “zero tolerance” for the trafficking of illicit substances—substances that, had they not been tacitly condoned by local state officials, would hardly have spread in a country where nearly every crack is controlled by the Ministry of the Interior (Minint).
In its bid to show muscle against rising crime and calm popular discontent, the regime claims to be treating the matter as a national security issue and has promoted in state media a few “exemplary trials” against the weakest links in the chain: addicted users and neighborhood sellers.
On September 4, 2025, the sentencing was announced in Moron (Ciego de Ávila) of an 18-year-old who must now spend eight years in prison for being in possession of several doses of the drug with intent to traffic, according to a report in Invasor, the official newspaper in that central province.
“In compliance with the zero-tolerance policy, and in accordance with what is established in the Constitution, the Criminal Division of the Provincial People’s Court of Ciego de Ávila held (…) an exemplary and didactic trial of a citizen carrying 206 packets of synthetic cannabinoid, known as El Químico”.
In a system that bars people from attending trials to show solidarity with defendants in political cases, the young man accused of drug charges was subjected to a trial “in the presence of family members, youth representatives from the Federation of High School Students and the Federation of University Students, mass organizations such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and the Federation of Cuban Women; and from the education and health sectors, and other institutions (…).”
The objective of publicizing these cases—after years of silence around drug addiction in Cuba—is not to fulfill any duty to inform, but to carry out an “order from above,” as state propaganda itself admits: “The holding of this trial with the aforementioned characteristics is part of the multiple actions being carried out in the country (…) to combat the harmful phenomenon,” reads Invasor.
It is no coincidence that just days earlier, on August 28, 2025, Ruling 476 was published, setting out new rules for prosecuting crimes linked to El Químico.
Whereas previously Cuban jurisprudence defined “relatively large amounts” of drugs as those over a pound (460 grams)—to apply the aggravated trafficking charge—now it has been established that criteria will depend on the composition, toxicity, and addictive potential of the substances, parameters to be assessed by toxicology and criminalistics experts.
Illegal possession of El Químico will be punished under Article 236(a) of the Penal Code: prison terms of one to three years or hefty fines. Article 235.2 of the law provides, for aggravated trafficking, penalties of 10 to 30 years in prison, life imprisonment, or the death penalty.
Another recent case confirms the severity applied to those who fall into the courts’ hands amid the current anti-drug crusade. On August 30, 2025, the Provincial People’s Court of Santiago de Cuba reported that its division for crimes against State Security sentenced a Cuban man to 13 years in prison after he traveled from Suriname carrying another person’s belongings, among them a bicycle seat with “300 grams of cocaine hydrochloride, with a purity of 95%.”
The convicted man, who acted as a “mule,” received 84 USD for transporting the luggage and was supposed to deliver it to someone else in Cuba “whose identity was not known.”
According to the 33-year-old defendant’s family, his lawyer demonstrated that he was unaware of the drugs hidden in the object he was entrusted to bring. They also denounced that the court failed to consider witnesses whose testimony would have supported the defense’s case. The court itself acknowledged that “this person had not previously been monitored for drug involvement, maintained appropriate social conduct, and had no criminal record.”
What to Expect from Cuba’s “Iron Fist”?
Breaking the law, especially in connection with a business that severely harms its consumers, should not go unpunished. But demanding a “heavy hand” and excessively harsh, punitive measures from a government steeped in violence and militarism—and lacking honesty, empathy, and common sense—can lead to undesirable consequences.
In another context of growing social awareness of drug presence, the Cuban government overreached in its offensive to eradicate them. “Operation People’s Shield”—which in 2003 coincided with the crackdown on dissidents and journalists known as the Black Spring—resulted in multiple due process violations and arbitrary sanctions, including confiscation of property and prison sentences for innocent people.
According to Amnesty International, “criminalizing drugs does not reduce either their consumption or their supply,” but rather fuels “an underground trade, increases the harms associated with use, and strengthens organized crime, corruption, and violence.”
The United Nations has likewise warned against criminalizing drug use and possession, recommending instead a comprehensive approach that includes access to essential medicines, palliative care, prevention, and comprehensive drug education, as well as treatment and harm reduction.
A recent World Bank report on organized crime and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean stressed that “in the medium and long term, the best public security policy is to build more functional states that can provide equal opportunities for all, including better educational systems and labor markets that can offer quality jobs.”
Similarly, with respect to drug use among children and youth, “punitive responses neither deter them from using drugs nor significantly restrict their access to them,” according to Amnesty International.
That conclusion resonates in a crisis-stricken Cuba, where at least 51 youths and 72 minors under 18 were implicated in 83 drug-related incidents in 2024, according to Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, head of the Minint’s Anti-Drug Agency.
In this scenario, a regime that cannot ensure minimum levels of food, electricity, or medicine offers only what it has in abundance: punishment and control.
While avoiding acknowledgment of the internal causes of El Químico’s production and spread, the official discourse focuses on the introduction of illicit substances from abroad, consistent with the image it seeks to promote internationally of a Caribbean security bulwark under external siege.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has stated that “punitive drug policies have driven mass incarceration and severe human rights violations,” in a world where about 20% of the global prison population is detained in connection with such crimes.
So what can be expected from excessive drug-related punishment in Cuba, where the prison system is already marked by overcrowding, precarious conditions, and rights violations?
When the Cuban regime—with its undeniable totalitarian DNA—asks for more repression against what you believe is harmful to society, what you are endorsing is fewer guarantees in a country where there is no rule of law and the “forces of order” operate with no checks or balances.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.