Are Barbiturates legal in Qatar?

Also known as: barbs

Legal status

Controlled member by member, and the members do not all sit in the same regime, which is what makes a single answer for this row wrong. Secobarbital is in the criminal tables, at Table 2-B item 13, printed as «13 - SECOBARBITAL 5-allyl-5-(1-methylbutyl) barbituric acid», and article 1 of Ministerial Decision 8 of 2026 restates that item. Every other barbiturate located sits instead on the Ministry of Public Health list of controlled psychotropic medicines: amobarbital at entry 1, butalbital at 3, cyclobarbital at 5, pentobarbital at 9, allobarbital at 10, barbital at 14, butobarbital at 18, methylphenobarbital at 52, phenobarbital at 63, secbutabarbital at 69 and vinylbital at 73. A probe of the Gazette annex for the letters barbit returns exactly one hit, and it is secobarbital. The family name is not named in Table 1 or Table 2. Article 1 of Law No. 9 of 1987 provides «تعتبر مواد مخدرة أو مؤثرات عقلية خطرة في تطبيق أحكام هذا القانون المواد والمؤثرات العقلية المبينة في الجدولين رقمي (1) و(2) الملحقين به. ويستثنى منها المستحضرات المبينة بالجدول رقم (3).», making the narcotic drugs and dangerous psychotropic substances for this Law those set out in attached Tables 1 and 2, and excepting from them the preparations set out in Table 3. The power to move a substance in or out is article 33, «يجوز بقرار من وزير الصحة العامة تعديل الجداول الملحقة بهذا القانون بالحذف أو الإضافة أو تغيير النسب الواردة فيها.», which lets the Minister of Public Health amend the attached tables by deletion, addition or change of the stated percentages. This reading is stated as at the annex as published in the Official Gazette and as it stands after Ministerial Decisions 22 of 2015, 6 of 2024, 2 of 2025 and 8 of 2026, the last of which took effect on 2 February 2026, read at the publisher on 22 September 2026. Those five documents are not a complete statement of the tables, and this cell says so rather than implying otherwise: the Ministry of Public Health prints on its own list of controlled narcotic and dangerous psychoactive substances a further block of entries, among them carfentanil, hydromorphone, oripavine and a long run of designer cathinones and synthetic cannabinoids, that appears in neither the Gazette annex nor any of the four located decisions, and the instruments that placed them were not found. So this reading is measured against those five documents and the three Ministry lists together, and not against a certified consolidation, because the portals publish none.

Consequences if caught

The exposure splits with the member, and that split is the answer for this row. For secobarbital, which is at Table 2-B item 13, the Law No. 9 of 1987 penalties engage in full. Article 34 opens «يعاقب بالإعدام أو الحبس المؤبد وبغرامة لا تزيد على خمسمائة ألف ريال ولا تقل عن ثلاثمائة ألف ريال», punishment by death or life imprisonment, and the word or is what leaves death discretionary at the base tier. The same article then provides «وتكون العقوبة الإعدام وبغرامة لا تزيد على خمسمائة ألف ريال ولا تقل عن ثلاثمائة ألف ريال في حالة العود.», making death the punishment on recidivism, and extends that same result to an offender who is a public official charged with drug control and to one who involves a person under eighteen, an ascendant, a descendant, a spouse or a person in his charge. Article 35 opens «يُعاقب بالحبس مدة لا تزيد على عشرين سنة ولا تقل عن عشر سنوات وبغرامة لا تزيد على أربعمائة ألف ريال ولا تقل عن مائتي ألف ريال», ten to twenty years for possession, acquisition, purchase, sale, delivery, receipt, transport, cession, exchange, dispensing or brokering with intent to traffic, for supplying for consumption for consideration and for keeping a place for consumption for consideration. Article 35 then provides «وتكون العقوبة الحبس المؤبد وبغرامة لا تزيد على أربعمائة ألف ريال ولا تقل عن مائتي ألف ريال في حالة العود.», life imprisonment on recidivism, and attaches life to its stated aggravations as well. Article 41 sets three to seven years for possession, acquisition, purchase, delivery, transport, production, extraction, separation or manufacture proved to be for neither trafficking nor consumption nor personal use. Article 37 sets six months to three years for personal use, possession for use or consumption, lets the court order treatment instead for a proved addict for not less than three months and not more than a year, and article 38 bars prosecution altogether for a user who presents for treatment of his own accord. No quantity threshold appears anywhere in articles 34, 35, 37 or 41. Weight does not select the tier and a foreign threshold table has no work to do here. The fines are stated in the same articles and are separate from the custodial terms: article 34 adds a fine of not more than five hundred thousand riyals and not less than three hundred thousand, article 35 not more than four hundred thousand and not less than two hundred thousand, its no-consideration limb and article 41 not more than two hundred thousand and not less than one hundred thousand, and article 37 not more than twenty thousand and not less than ten thousand. For every other barbiturate located, the regime is Law No. 19 of 1993 instead. Law No. 19 of 1993 carries its own penalties and they are nothing like Law No. 9's. Article 15 provides at most three years, or a fine of at most ten thousand riyals, or either of them alone, for a breach of its article 3, doubles that on recidivism, and orders confiscation of the substance and of the apparatus and vessels used in every case. Article 16 provides at most two years or a fine of at most ten thousand riyals for a doctor who issues a prescription without medical justification, and adds closure of the clinic and revocation of the licence on recidivism. Article 17 provides at most one year or a fine of at most five thousand riyals for supplying for consumption or facilitating it, and for a licensee who uses the substance outside the permitted purpose. There is no capital or life term in that Law and no quantity threshold anywhere in it. Whether the offence reaches this row at all is exactly what was not established.

If prescribed or medical

There is a lawful medical route and it runs through a licence, not through a quantity. Article 3 provides «لا يجوز استيراد المواد المخدرة أو المؤثرات العقلية الخطرة أو تصديرها أو نقلها إلا بمقتضى ترخيص كتابي من وزير الصحة العامة.», so importing, exporting or transporting a narcotic drug or dangerous psychotropic substance requires a written licence from the Minister of Public Health. Article 18, as amended by Law No. 16 of 2023, provides «يصدر وزير الصحة العامة قراراً بالبيانات والشروط الواجب توافرها في تحرير الوصفات الطبية التي توصف بمقتضاها مواد مخدرة أو مؤثرات عقلية خطرة للصرف من الصيدليات.», so the Minister sets the particulars and conditions for writing such prescriptions, they are dispensed from paper books stamped with the Ministry's seal or electronically with the Ministry's approval, and the Minister may cap the quantity dispensed to each patient. Article 36 sets five to ten years and a fine of not more than two hundred thousand riyals and not less than one hundred thousand for a doctor who writes a prescription without medical justification and for anyone who knowingly dispenses on one. A foreign prescription is not a Qatari licence and does not become one at the border. For a member that sits on the psychotropic medicines list instead, Law No. 19 of 1993 supplies the route: its article 2 permits personal possession within a doctor's prescribed quantity, article 10 caps one prescription at sixty days for a chronic illness and ten days otherwise, and article 11 bars dispensing more than seven days after the prescription was written.

Documentation

Bring the Ministry of Public Health clearance, not the prescription alone. The Pharmacy and Drug Control Department's traveller guideline requires a detailed approved medical report or prescription issued within the last six months, on the treating facility's letterhead with its stamp, naming the patient, the diagnosis, the treatment plan and duration, the scientific name of the drug, the pharmaceutical form, the prescribed dose and the quantity, together with an undertaking to use the treatment only on the named patient and a copy of the passport. For a narcotic or a dangerous psychoactive substance the quantity allowed is thirty days or the length of the stay, whichever is shorter, and an injectable form is released only under the supervision of a local healthcare facility in the patient's name. For a barbiturate other than secobarbital the guideline's psychotropic allowance of two months applies instead of the thirty-day narcotic allowance. The member listings were read on 22 September 2026.

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