Are Benzodiazepines legal in Iran?

Legal status

Controlled, and the class splits across two regimes. Flunitrazepam is named in the opening of Article 8 of the Anti-Narcotics Law, which is the capital article, and it is also entry 6 of Schedule 3 of the four psychotropic schedules. About twenty other members sit in Schedule 4 instead, among them alprazolam at entry 2, bromazepam at 7, chlordiazepoxide at 11, clobazam at 12, clonazepam at 13, diazepam at 18, lorazepam at 34, midazolam at 43, nimetazepam at 44, nitrazepam at 45, oxazepam at 47, temazepam at 58 and triazolam at 60. The class as a class is not named in either instrument, taking the Anti-Narcotics Law of 1367/08/03, which is 25 October 1988, as the publisher’s consolidation carries it, with its 1376, 1380, 1389, 1396 and 1399 amendments, meaning 1997, 2001, 2010, 2017 and 2020, and the fine revision of 1403/03/30, which is 19 June 2024, and the four psychotropic schedules as those schedules stand after the Cabinet decision of 1384/09/13, which is 4 December 2005, both read on 22 September 2026. The additional list that Articles 4, 8 and 46 leave to Parliament was not recovered, so this does not rule out a later parliamentary listing or a Ministry of Health designation under Article 1 note 1.

Consequences if caught

The two regimes are not close to each other, so the class cannot take one answer. Flunitrazepam sits inside Article 8 and its bands run from 20 to 50 lashes with a fine of 50 to 115 million rials up to 5 centigrams to ten to fifteen years above 15 grams. The Schedule 4 members sit under the Psychotropics Law instead, where Article 4 gives 61 days to three years plus seizure for unauthorised manufacture, import or export, Article 7 gives 61 days to six months for supply otherwise than by a pharmacy against a prescription, and Article 8 gives up to six months for unauthorised possession. No fine is stated in those Psychotropics Law articles. Iran keeps the death penalty for drug offences and uses it. Article 45, added by the Act of 1396/07/12, which is 4 October 2017, and approved by the Guardian Council on 1396/07/26, which is 18 October 2017, reaches only offences that already carry death or life imprisonment under this Law, and its paragraph (t) sets the quantity limb: «کلیه جرائم موضوع ماده (4) این قانون مشروط بر اینکه بیش از پنجاه کیلوگرم باشد و مواد موضوع ماده (8) این قانون مشروط بر اینکه بیش از دو کیلوگرم باشد و در خصوص سایر جرائم موضوع ماده (8) در صورتی‌که بیش از سه کیلوگرم باشد». The quantities are more than 50 kilograms for Article 4 offences, more than 2 kilograms for the Article 8 supply limb, and more than 3 kilograms for the other Article 8 offences of buying, keeping, concealing or transporting, which is how the Head of the Judiciary circular of 1396/10/16, meaning 6 January 2018, reads that paragraph at its own paragraph 7. Below those quantities the older capital wording does not lapse by itself, because Article 45 converts a former death case to grade one imprisonment of up to thirty years and a former life case to grade two imprisonment, with confiscation of drug proceeds in both. The money runs beside that conversion: a grade one fine up to twice its minimum for the former death case and a grade two fine for the former life case. Paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of Article 45 carry no quantity floor at all, and reach an offender who drew or carried a weapon, a ringleader, a financial backer or investor, an offender who used a person under eighteen or a person lacking capacity, and an offender with a final prior conviction under this Law for death, life or more than fifteen years. Advisory opinion 7/99/136 applies paragraph (c) to the transport of 80 grams of heroin and to the possession of 200 kilograms of opium, which is why a weight under two kilograms is not a safe limit. At least 503 drug related executions were recorded in 2024 and 471 in 2023, roughly half of all executions and carried out by hanging, which the US Library of Congress Global Legal Monitor reports and Harm Reduction International and Amnesty International corroborate. A second figure of 485 for 2024 also sits in this project’s earlier Iran records, unattributed there, and the two were not reconciled, so both are printed rather than one being chosen. Those figures are set out here because they describe the offences that this row’s placement brings into play.

If prescribed or medical

The note to Article 9 of the Psychotropics Law exempts import, export, possession and transport of a Schedule 2, 3 or 4 substance from that Law where the amount is proportionate to personal therapeutic use: «وارد یا خارج کردن از کشور یا نگاهداری یا حمل مواد مذکور در ماده 4 این قانون در صورتی که به مقادیر متناسب یا مصارف درمانی شخصی باشد از شمول کلیه مقررات این قانون معاف خواهد بود». That is a statutory exemption and not a licence, so carry the original packaging and the prescription, and confirm the position with the Iranian embassy before travel. That exemption covers the Schedule 4 members. It does not cover flunitrazepam, which Article 8 of the Anti-Narcotics Law reaches directly. Iran’s own entry in the INCB Country Regulations for Travellers, 2025 sheet, admits only original and intact drugs approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, carried with a prescription and in quantities covering the stay, and it says that beyond 6 months you must see a physician in Iran. The contact it gives is ICSA at fda.gov.ir.

Documentation

A single class answer would be wrong here in both directions. Iran keeps the death penalty for drug offences and uses it. Article 45, added by the Act of 1396/07/12, which is 4 October 2017, and approved by the Guardian Council on 1396/07/26, which is 18 October 2017, reaches only offences that already carry death or life imprisonment under this Law, and its paragraph (t) sets the quantity limb: «کلیه جرائم موضوع ماده (4) این قانون مشروط بر اینکه بیش از پنجاه کیلوگرم باشد و مواد موضوع ماده (8) این قانون مشروط بر اینکه بیش از دو کیلوگرم باشد و در خصوص سایر جرائم موضوع ماده (8) در صورتی‌که بیش از سه کیلوگرم باشد». The quantities are more than 50 kilograms for Article 4 offences, more than 2 kilograms for the Article 8 supply limb, and more than 3 kilograms for the other Article 8 offences of buying, keeping, concealing or transporting, which is how the Head of the Judiciary circular of 1396/10/16, meaning 6 January 2018, reads that paragraph at its own paragraph 7. Below those quantities the older capital wording does not lapse by itself, because Article 45 converts a former death case to grade one imprisonment of up to thirty years and a former life case to grade two imprisonment, with confiscation of drug proceeds in both. The money runs beside that conversion: a grade one fine up to twice its minimum for the former death case and a grade two fine for the former life case. Paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of Article 45 carry no quantity floor at all, and reach an offender who drew or carried a weapon, a ringleader, a financial backer or investor, an offender who used a person under eighteen or a person lacking capacity, and an offender with a final prior conviction under this Law for death, life or more than fifteen years. Advisory opinion 7/99/136 applies paragraph (c) to the transport of 80 grams of heroin and to the possession of 200 kilograms of opium, which is why a weight under two kilograms is not a safe limit. At least 503 drug related executions were recorded in 2024 and 471 in 2023, roughly half of all executions and carried out by hanging, which the US Library of Congress Global Legal Monitor reports and Harm Reduction International and Amnesty International corroborate. A second figure of 485 for 2024 also sits in this project’s earlier Iran records, unattributed there, and the two were not reconciled, so both are printed rather than one being chosen. Those figures are set out here because they describe the offences that this row’s placement brings into play. Version read for this cell: the Anti-Narcotics Law of 1367/08/03, which is 25 October 1988, as the publisher’s consolidation carries it, with its 1376, 1380, 1389, 1396 and 1399 amendments, meaning 1997, 2001, 2010, 2017 and 2020, and the fine revision of 1403/03/30, which is 19 June 2024, and the four psychotropic schedules as those schedules stand after the Cabinet decision of 1384/09/13, which is 4 December 2005, both read on 22 September 2026, together with the narcotics-list decree of 1338/05/02, which is July 1959, whose Article 5 carries an amendment of 1352/12/28, meaning 19 March 1974, and the Psychotropics Law of 1354/02/08, which is 28 April 1975. Item 419 of the health invalidation law of 1399/08/05, meaning 26 October 2020, names annexes 1 to 4 of the 1354 Psychotropics Law, and Judiciary advisory opinion 7/1400/434 of 1400/09/09, meaning 30 November 2021, reads that as reaching the 1354 Law’s own original annexes, which later Cabinet decisions had already displaced, so the 1384/09/13 schedules stand. Article 1 of the 1354 Psychotropics Law lets the Ministry revise these four schedules on a recommendation of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, but only with Cabinet approval, publication and a further fifteen days, so a change to the 1971 Psychotropic Substances Convention does not enter Iranian law by itself, and the 1961 and 1971 Convention schedules are not the Iranian list. Provenance of the placement: the schedule and entry number stated for this row was read in the instrument itself and was not taken from the project dossier, because no quoted extract in that dossier carries a schedule marker for any substance, measured across all 88 of its quotation cells on 22 September 2026. Older bands survive inside the same articles and are what Article 45 converts. Article 4 band 4 reads death and confiscation above 5 kilograms, with a note giving life imprisonment, 74 lashes and confiscation for a first offence of 20 kilograms or less that was not distributed or sold. Article 8 band 6 reads death and confiscation above 30 grams, with a note giving life imprisonment for a first offence of no more than 100 grams that was not distributed or sold. Before the 1396 Act, meaning before 2017, the reported capital thresholds were far lower, at more than 30 grams of heroin or cocaine and more than 5 kilograms of opium or cannabis. The Anti-Narcotics Law itself dates from 1988 and the substances it incorporates by definition come from the narcotics list decree of 1959. Article 41 excludes authorised medical, research and industrial activity: «ساخت، تولید، خرید، فروش، ارسال، نگهداری، ورود، صدور، مصرف و حمل مواد ممنوع حسب مورد برای مصارف پزشکی، تحقیقاتی و صنعتی با مجوز وزارت بهداشت، درمان و آموزش پزشکی از شمول این قانون مستثنی است», so a medicinal use or a trade name does not by itself establish that the Ministry of Health permission exists. Carry any controlled medicine in its original packaging with the prescription, and confirm requirements with your embassy before travel.

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