The principle of humanism invokes the need to focus the entire legal regulation on the protection, as a matter of priority, of the person as the supreme value of society, its rights and freedoms. On the other hand, focusing on the subject of the crime, the same principle, imposes the negative obligation of the state to avoid causing physical suffering or harming human dignity. The transposition into law of the principle of humanism has theirs through the institutions of release from liability and criminal punishment. We draw attention to the fact that the release from criminal liability, although it has its legislative headquarters in the General Part of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova, is also found with reference to some components of crimes in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova. The normative regulations from article 217, paragraph (5) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova, represent a particular case of the release of criminal liability for the illegal circulation of drugs, ethnobotanicals or their analogues. The conditions imposed for the application of the latter are of a dual nature and concern the application of the institutions of material and procedural criminal law. We exclude the possibility of assessing this legal-criminal institute, as an exception to the rule of passivity of criminal liability. Its value, in our opinion, lies in the need to prevent and combat crime aimed at the illegal circulation of drugs, in addition to the possibility of applying the criminal law, with strict observance of the principle of legality and humanism. In this study, we aim to analyze the criminal regulatory framework on the release of criminal liability for the illegal circulation of drugs, ethnobotanicals or