2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FOUR - Health and Sanitation (§§ 1 — 15010) › PART V - Controlled Substances (§§ 2101 — 2608) › Chapter 111 - Controlled Substances Act of Puerto Rico (§§ 2101 — 2608) › Subchapter II - Authority to Control; Standards and Schedules (§§ 2201 — 2202) › § 2201 - Authority and criteria for classification of substances

(a) The Secretary shall apply the provisions of this chapter to the controlled substances listed in the schedules established by § 2202 of this title and to any other drug or other substance added to such schedules under this chapter.
The Secretary, by rule or order to that end, may:
(1) Add to such a schedule or transfer between such schedules any drug or other substance if he finds that such drug or other substance has a potential for abuse, and makes, with respect to such drug or other substance, the findings prescribed by subsection (b) of § 2202 of this title for the schedule in which such drug is to be placed.
(2) Remove any drug or other substance from the schedules of this chapter if he finds that such drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule.
Proceedings for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of such rules may be initiated by the Secretary (1) on his own motion, or (2) on the petition of any interested party.
(b) The Secretary of Health, may, before initiating proceedings under subsection (a) of this section to control a drug or other substance by its inclusion in the schedules provided in this chapter, or to remove them therefrom, request from the proper agencies their opinion and that they submit to him all the data they may have as to whether such drug or other substance should be controlled or removed from the schedules.
(c) In making any findings in accordance with subsection (a) of this section, the Secretary of Health shall consider the following factors with respect to each drug or substance proposed to be controlled or removed from the schedules:
(1) Its actual or relative potential for abuse;
(2) scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known;
(3) the state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other substance;
(4) its history and current pattern of abuse;
(5) the scope, duration, and significance of abuse;
(6) what, if any, risk there is to the public health;
(7) its psychic or physiological dependence liability; and
(8) whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a substance already controlled under this chapter.
(d) The Secretary may place, without regard to the findings required by subsection (a) of this section and without regard to the procedures prescribed by this section, through an order for that purpose an immediate precursor in the same schedule in which the controlled substance of which it is an immediate precursor is placed or in any other schedule with a higher numerical designation. If the Secretary designates a substance as an immediate precursor and places it in a schedule, other substances shall not be placed in a schedule solely because they are precursors.
(e) The Secretary shall exclude, by regulation or order for that purpose, any nonnarcotic substance from a schedule if such substance may, under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, be sold without prescription or recipe.
(f) If any substance is designated, reclassified or removed as a controlled substance under the Federal Controlled Substance Act and it is so notified to the Secretary, the latter through an order, shall proceed to designate, reclassify or remove said substance under this chapter, thirty (30) days after the publication in the Federal Bulletin of a final order designating, reclassifying or removing the substance, unless within the period of thirty (30) days above-mentioned, the Secretary objects to the inclusion, reclassification or removal. In such case, the Secretary shall publish the reasons for his objection and shall give all parties concerned the opportunity to be heard. At the end of the hearing, the Secretary shall publish his decision for three (3) days in a newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico, which shall be final, unless altered by legislation. Once the objection of the Secretary to include, reclassify or remove a substance under this chapter has been published, the control of same shall continue until the Secretary publishes his decision.
(g) Every order issued by the Secretary, pursuant to the provisions of subsections (a), (d), (e) and (f) of this section, shall be considered part of the rules, as an annex thereof, for all legal purposes and its content shall be published within the term of thirty (30) days, reckoned from the date of its issuance in two (2) newspapers of general circulation in the island for three (3) consecutive days. These orders shall take effect after the elapse of a thirty (30) day term, reckoned from the day of the last publication.
History —June 23, 1971, No. 4, p. 526, § 201; July 23, 1974, No. 130, Part 1, p. 587, § 1.