Is Cathinone legal in United Arab Emirates?

Legal status

Cathinone, the parent alkaloid, is placed in Schedule 5 of Decision No. 158 of 2025, the psychotropic schedule the dossier describes as the Schedule I equivalent branch. The printed entry is «كاثينون», a bare designation with no derivatives or analogues limb attached to it. Schedule 5 also carries a cathinones block at item 3 which enumerates the substituted members individually, and those two facts have to be read together: the parent is controlled by its own entry and the derivatives are controlled by being enumerated, so the parent entry does not sweep in a substituted cathinone the block has not named. That is the structural reason a cathinone question in the United Arab Emirates turns into a question about which cathinone. This row runs through Articles 10, 41 and 57, with the Schedule 10 bands alongside. The placement was read on 20 September 2026.

Consequences if caught

Schedule 5 is one of the four schedule groups Article 57 names, and the «كاثينون» entry is what places this row inside it rather than in the Schedule 6 to 8 branch that carries Article 58. That difference is the whole of the row: Article 57 is recorded as stating mandatory death for its trafficking or promotion trigger, where Article 58 offers death or life imprisonment as alternatives, so the parent alkaloid sits on the harsher of the two routes. The dossier records Article 57 as stating no quantity, and records that the Schedule 10 bands do not gate it, so the exposure attaches to the schedule and not to an amount. Article 41 carries the personal use route for this branch, with its tariff unstated in the dossier.

If prescribed or medical

The country level traveller material the dossier carries is a single record at the modafinil row, where a 268 entry ministry travellers list was checked and expressly not used as a schedule. Attached to this substance: cathinone is in Schedule 5 at the entry «كاثينون», with no medicinal product or prescribing route recorded against it. The dossier gives no permit procedure for the Schedule 5 branch, so the question is deferred rather than answered.

Documentation

No documentation route is recorded for cathinone. Provenance: the Schedule 5 placement and the entry «كاثينون» were read on 20 September 2026, and the capital analysis rests on Article 57 and not on the Schedule 10 bands. The point worth carrying from this row is that the parent entry does not answer a question about a substituted cathinone, so material identified only as a cathinone type stimulant needs its own member checked against the item 3 block before anything is said about it.

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.