Is Ayahuasca legal in Pakistan?

Legal status

Split answer, and the split is in the schedules rather than in my reading. The alkaloid that ayahuasca is taken for is scheduled and ayahuasca itself is not. The scheduled alkaloid is DMT, carried as an unnumbered row of Schedule-I under serial 13, printed '[DMT', '3-[2-diethylamino)ethyl] indole'. Neither of the two plants it is brewed from, Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis, is named anywhere, and the harmala alkaloids that make the brew orally active are not scheduled either.

Consequences if caught

The bands are measured on the alkaloid, so what is weighed for ayahuasca is a question of fact about the material seized. Section 9(2) sets nine quantity bands for a psychotropic substance, from 'Up to 20 grams' at one year with a floor of two months, through 'More than 500-grams and up to one kilo grams' at seven years, to 'Exceeding four kilo grams', which reads 'imprisonment which shall not be less than life imprisonment along-with fine which shall not be less than two million rupees'. Those bands are measured on the quantity of the psychotropic substance, and the Act gives no conversion from plant material to alkaloid content, unlike the cannabis and opium rows of section 9(1), which are measured on the plant product itself. Capital and life exposure. The band that the alkaloid tops out at is life, at more than four kilograms. Death is not available. Act No. XXXVIII of 2023, section 2, assented on 2 August 2023 and published in the Gazette of Pakistan, Extraordinary, on 5 August 2023, removed every death reference from section 9. The words at the heroin and morphine band of 6000 grams or more and at the cocaine band of 5000 grams or more were omitted, and the Pakistan Code now prints a bracketed omission mark where they stood. In the fourth proviso to section 9(2) the words 'may be death or' were replaced by 'shall be'. The word death survives twice in the whole fifty page Act and both are procedural. Because death is unavailable, the question whether it is mandatory does not arise. The ceiling is life, and section 9A(3) says what that means: 'Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for time being in force, imprisonment for life under this Act means imprisonment in jail for the period of twenty-five years.' Section 9A(2) bars probation and parole, and section 9A(1) bars remission except for a juvenile or a female convict.

If prescribed or medical

Where a prescription for ayahuasca exists at all, rule 2(1)(xxix) says what it has to be: 'a written direction by a practitioner that a stated amount of a drug of abuse be dispensed for the person named therein'. The plant itself is not a drug of abuse under the Rules, so nothing licenses it and nothing forbids it there either. Section 6 prohibits possession and the rest 'except for medical, scientific or industrial purposes in the manner and subject to such conditions as may be specified by or under this Act or any other law for the time being in force'. The conditions are the Control of Narcotic Substances (Regulation of Drugs of Abuse, Controlled Chemicals, Equipment and Materials) Rules, 2001, which run a registration, licence and permit system under rules 5 to 18. Rule 14 provides for permits in relation to first-aid kits and rule 15 for programmes for medical and scientific purposes, and rule 11 governs import, export and transit permits. A traveller carrying a prescribed medicine should hold the prescription and the dispensing label, in the prescriber's name, and should expect the quantity to be measured against the section 9 bands if the substance is scheduled.

Documentation

The split on ayahuasca, set out so the confirmed half and the deferred half do not blur. Objective, and confirmed: the alkaloid is named in Schedule-I with its own chemical name in column 3, and the plant is named in no schedule of the Act, no schedule of the Rules 2001 and no entry of the Schedule to the Hadd Order. Judgment, and deferred: whether possession of the plant is possession of the scheduled alkaloid within it. The Act contains no preparation clause of its own. Rule 4(1) of the Rules 2001 has one, 'Preparations shall be subject to the same measures of control, under these rules, as the drugs of abuse or controlled chemicals they contain', but it governs the Rules and not section 9. The Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order, 1979 does not reach it either: the Schedule to that Order lists only hemp, charas, mixtures of the two, opium and opium derivatives, coca leaf and coca derivatives, and hashish.

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