Is 4-HO-MET legal in Kazakhstan?

Legal status

4-HO-MET is not named in Kazakhstan's controlled list and the analogue route does not close cleanly either, so this row is unresolved rather than clear. Government Resolution No. 470 of 3 July 2019 approves three documents: a Список in four tables, a Сводная таблица of sizes, a short veterinary medicines list and the Список заместителей атомов водорода, галогенов и (или) гидроксильных групп в структурных формулах наркотических средств, психотропных веществ, which is what gives the analogue rule its content. The nearest listed relative is Псилоцин, псилотсин at item 30 of Таблица I section В. 4-HO-MET differs from the listed psilocin by an ethyl group on the side chain nitrogen where psilocin carries a second methyl. That is not the replacement of a hydrogen, a halogen or a hydroxyl group, which is what the substituent list is drawn to cover, so the analogue route is not clean on the face of the text. One nearby entry shows the drafter working this corner by hand: item 54 lists 5-HO-NMT, norbufotenine, by systematic name. 4-HO-MET is not among the entries worked that way. So the honest statement is that the instrument neither names 4-HO-MET nor supplies a substitution that plainly reaches it, and whether an expert report would call it an analogue in an individual case is not something this text settles. [Certain] that the substance is absent by name from all three approved lists as the instrument stands. [Guessing] on how the analogue rule would be applied to it. The copy read carries the amendment of 24 February 2026 made by Government Resolution No. 111, and the Сводная таблица is wholly in that redaction, so every size quoted here is the 24 February 2026 text, and a later amendment adding this substance by name is not ruled out.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Kazakhstan has abolished the death penalty. No capital punishment remains available anywhere in its Criminal Code, because the law of 29 December 2021 numbered 89-VII on abolition replaced the words carrying it in Article 11 with life imprisonment, and Article 46 now names life imprisonment as the heaviest penalty the Code holds. Because the Resolution neither names 4-HO-MET nor supplies a size row for it, no threshold can be quoted for this substance and none is invented here. The penalty ladder is read off those sizes. Possession without intent to supply sits in Criminal Code Article 296, which is non-custodial at parts 2 and 3, a fine of up to 160 or up to 200 monthly calculation indices or arrest of up to 40 or 50 days, and becomes custodial only at part 4, three to seven years, once the seizure is особо крупный. Consumption in a public place is part 1 of the same article. Supply runs under Article 297 at five to eight years with confiscation for the bare offence and fifteen to twenty years for its heaviest part, and manufacture or processing for supply under Article 297-1, added on 2 January 2025 by law No. 150-VIII, carries life imprisonment at part 4. Those bands are read off the Сводная таблица, and for a substance the table does not carry there is nothing to read, so an exposure for 4-HO-MET would depend first on an expert report bringing it within a listed entry. Article 296 also carries a note releasing from liability under that article a person who voluntarily hands the substance over, seeks medical help or actively assists in uncovering a related offence. [Likely] The Criminal Code articles and their year ranges in this cell were read from secondary consolidations rather than from an official publisher in this pass. Two independent consolidations agree on them, and the Code's own article text was not reached: the state portal served only its contents list. The abolition of the death penalty, by contrast, was confirmed against the Code itself and is tagged [Certain] where it appears. [Likely] Carried from the entry published before this batch and not re-derived in this pass: the two middle rungs of that ladder are six to ten years for part 2 and seven to twelve years for part 3.

If prescribed or medical

Because the Resolution does not reach 4-HO-MET, it supplies no prescribing rule for it and none is invented here. Kazakhstan runs a separate category of сильнодействующие и ядовитые вещества, potent and poisonous substances, which Criminal Code Article 301 punishes and which is fixed by its own list. That list was not read in this pass, so silence in Resolution No. 470 is not a finding that 4-HO-MET is unregulated in Kazakhstan, only that this instrument does not schedule it.

Documentation

Provenance. All three lists approved by Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 470 of 3 July 2019 approving the Список наркотических средств, психотропных веществ и прекурсоров, подлежащих контролю в Республике Казахстан and the Сводная таблица of small, large and particularly large sizes were read in full from the consolidated text at https://zakon.uchet.kz/rus/docs/P1900000470 on 2026-09-21, with the tables parsed by column position, and the searches for this substance were anchored at the start of each entry name rather than run as free substring matches, because unanchored matching in this document returns false hits. The copy read carries the amendment of 24 February 2026 made by Government Resolution No. 111, and the Сводная таблица is wholly in that redaction, so every size quoted here is the 24 February 2026 text. This cell asserts an absence, so it names the version it read and does not rule out a later one adding 4-HO-MET.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Kazakhstan’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.