Is Cathinone legal in Netherlands?

Legal status

Controlled as a hard drug. Cathinone is named in lijst I of the Opiumwet, the hard drug list, and the row prints «cathinon». Lijst I placement decides the regime, because article 2 supplies the prohibitions and article 10 the ceilings.

Consequences if caught

Cathinon sits in lijst I and cathine, the other principal khat alkaloid, sits in lijst II, so the two alkaloids of one plant attract different articles and different ceilings. Use is not itself made an offence by the Opiumwet, which is why the Dutch position is often misread: article 2 and article 3 reach import, export, cultivation, preparation, sale, supply, transport, manufacture and presence, and presence is what a traveller carrying the substance has. Article 1, second limb, equates the salts of a substance with the substance itself. Article 10 carries the penalties for lijst I. Intentionally having the substance present, the limb at article 2 under C, carries imprisonment of up to 6 years. Intentionally cultivating, preparing, processing, selling, delivering, supplying, transporting or manufacturing it, article 2 under B and D, carries up to 8 years. Intentionally bringing it into or out of Netherlands territory, article 2 under A, carries up to 12 years, so the trafficking and import limbs run from 8 to 12 years. Where the presence, or the bringing into or out of the territory, concerns a small quantity intended for own use, article 10, sixth limb, lowers the ceiling to 1 year or a fine of the third category; it does not reach the article 2 under B and D acts. The fine on the serious limbs is the fifth category, which the Criminal Code prints at 67.000 euro with an editorial note recording 110.000 euro from 1 January 2026. They describe the offences that this row's placement brings into play. The Aanwijzing Opiumwet of the Openbaar Ministerie is prosecution policy and not a statute. For lijst I it treats as a small quantity for own use one bolletje, one ampul, one wikkel or one pill or tablet, in any event a quantity of at most 0,5 gram, and for GHB one consumption unit of 5 ml, with no targeted investigation and prosecution only in support of care. A tolerated quantity is not a lawful one. The live cell recorded a 1971 Convention Schedule I listing for the alkaloid and a separate lijst II ban on the khat plant since 2013. Both are carried forward from it and not verified here. That Convention schedule is not printed in the list entry quoted here.

If prescribed or medical

Article 2 of the Opiumwetbesluit forbids prescribing an Opiumwet substance unless one of the two bijlagen to that decree names it, and neither names this one. There is accordingly no lawful prescription route for it outside research under the Wet medisch-wetenschappelijk onderzoek met mensen. No article 75 Schengen certificate is available for it either, because that route presupposes a prescribed medicine.

Documentation

No licit personal-import route for a List I hard drug; no medical carry exemption for cathinone.

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