Is Amyl Nitrite legal in South Africa?
- Legal status
- Not named in Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992, so it is not a drug or a scheduled substance under that Act.
- Consequences if caught
- Amyl nitrite is an alkyl ester of nitrous acid. No nitrite ester and no nitrate ester appears anywhere in either schedule, and no listed substance is a vasodilator. The homologue limb needs a chemically related listed substance to work from, and there is none. The dossier left this row unresolved on the footing that the closest Schedule 2 text was the entry for glutethimide, which the Act prints as "Gluthethimide." with that spelling. That entry is a piperidinedione sedative in Part I and it has nothing structural or pharmacological in common with an alkyl nitrite, so it does not support a deferral. Capital exposure: none, and life exposure: none. Section 17 sets out the whole penalty scale of this Act and its highest figure is 25 years for dealing; no provision of the Act carries a death sentence or a sentence of life imprisonment.
- If prescribed or medical
- Amyl nitrite has a medicinal history as a vasodilator and an antidote constituent. Any current South African pharmacy status for it comes from the Medicines Act, which is not held in this repository and was not read for this cell. This Act imposes nothing.
- Documentation
- Search record. The terms searched were amyl nitrite, amyl, nitrite, nitrate and isobutyl. All return zero occurrences as substance entries. The related label row for this family is answered separately and reaches the same conclusion by the same route. The text read for this cell is the Juta consolidation of the Act downloaded on 29 May 2025, taken from the Department of Justice copy at justice.gov.za whose sha256 begins bc1216a3. It carries the substitution of Schedules 1 and 2 by section 2 of Act 14 of 2022 with effect from 14 December 2022, and it marks section 7 of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act 7 of 2024, the provision that would amend Schedule 2 again, as not yet put into operation by proclamation. The schedules are stated as at that consolidation and this does not rule out a later amendment made or commenced since.
- Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992, absence measured across both schedules
- Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act 140 of 1992, ss 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 13, 17 and 19, with Schedules 1 and 2
- justice.gov.za
- read from the cached text at research/instruments/south-africa/za-drugs-act-140-1992.txt, 84,091 bytes, against the.pdf beside it at 127,460 bytes
- the consolidation is dated 29 May 2025 and carries the Act 14 of 2022 substitution of both schedules with effect from 14 December 2022
Court records
We have not yet assessed whether court records are publicly available for this jurisdiction.
Other substances confirmed in South Africa
Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with South Africa’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.
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