Are Benzodiazepines legal in United Arab Emirates?

Legal status

Benzodiazepines is a class label, and the member by member check that answers such a label was run against the Emirati schedules and returned members. Decision No. 158 of 2025 prints the six members carried in this table separately in Schedule 8, recorded at «ألبرازولام؛ كلونازيبام؛ ديازيبام؛ لورازيبام؛ إيتزولام؛ نيميتازيبام», which is alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, lorazepam, etizolam and nimetazepam. That is what makes this class label resolvable here: every member has its own printed entry and its own row in this table, so the class answer is the sum of six individual placements rather than a rule about the family. All six land in the same schedule, so the article result does not vary between them, but the reason it does not vary is that each was checked and not that a class rule was applied. A benzodiazepine the schedule does not name is not placed by this row. The row runs through Articles 11, 43 and 58. The placements were read on 20 September 2026.

Consequences if caught

Article 58 reaches Schedules 3, 6, 7 and 8, and all six named members sit in Schedule 8, so the article reaches the class through its members. The dossier records Article 58 as providing death or life imprisonment as alternatives for its stated trafficking or promotion trigger, so death is discretionary rather than mandatory, and it records that the article states no quantity. The Schedule 10 bands do not gate that route. The finding worth stating plainly is that the lowest psychotropic schedule in this instrument is still inside a capital trafficking article, so the ordinariness of these medicines does not put them outside it. Article 43 carries the personal use route for this branch, with no tariff stated in the dossier.

If prescribed or medical

The dossier records at the modafinil row that a 268 entry ministry travellers list was checked and expressly not used as a schedule. Attached to this class: the placement that matters belongs to the identified member, and the six the schedule names are alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, lorazepam, etizolam and nimetazepam, so a prescription has to name one of those rather than the family word for there to be a placement to evidence at all. No prescribing route, traveller allowance or permit procedure is recorded for the Schedule 8 branch, so the question is deferred.

Documentation

Carry the prescription naming the individual benzodiazepine rather than the class, with the original dispensing packaging, because the entry that can be evidenced is the member's and not the family word's. Provenance: the six Schedule 8 member entries were read on 20 September 2026, and the capital analysis rests on Article 58 and its death or life alternative. If a traveller carries a benzodiazepine that is not one of those six, this row does not answer the question and that member needs checking against the schedule in its own right.

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