Is Cocaine legal in United Arab Emirates?

Also known as: coke, blow

Legal status

Cocaine sits in Schedule 1 of Decision No. 158 of 2025, the instrument carrying the current federal drug schedules. The printed entry is «كوكايين», a single Arabic designation the dossier renders as cocaine, with no salts, isomers or preparations limb printed beside it, so the entry reaches what it names and nothing is carried across by family resemblance. Schedule 1 is the narcotics schedule itself, which is why the federal trafficking and personal use provisions reach this row directly rather than through a traveller information inference. The dossier attaches Articles 10, 41 and 57 to this branch and states the content of Article 57 only, so Articles 10 and 41 are named here as the routes it records rather than described. Schedule 10 of the same instrument carries the quantity bands, and the dossier records that those bands do not gate the Article 57 route for a Schedule 1 substance. The placement was read on 20 September 2026.

Consequences if caught

Schedule 1 is one of the four schedule groups Article 57 names, and the «كوكايين» entry is what puts this row inside it. For those groups the dossier records Article 57 as stating mandatory death for its trafficking or promotion trigger, and as stating no quantity for it. It records separately that the Schedule 10 weight bands, which do set quantities elsewhere in the same instrument, do not gate that route. The distinction carries more weight on this row than any figure would: an article attaching death to a schedule is a different thing from one attaching death above a threshold, and only the second can be answered with a number. Below the trafficking trigger the dossier names Article 41 as the personal use route for this branch without stating its tariff, so no term of years is given here. No cocaine quantity appears anywhere in the dossier's capital analysis and none is inferred into it.

If prescribed or medical

The dossier records at one row, modafinil, that a 268 entry ministry travellers list was checked and expressly not used as a schedule, and that is the country level handle it gives: presence on or absence from that list moves nothing into or out of Decision No. 158. Attached to this substance: cocaine is in Schedule 1, the narcotics schedule proper, and Article 10 is the article the dossier names for that branch without saying what it provides. The dossier carries no prescribing route, no import permit procedure and no exemption for cocaine, so the medical carriage question is deferred here rather than answered.

Documentation

No document recorded in this dossier makes carrying cocaine lawful in the United Arab Emirates, so on what the dossier records there is nothing to carry rather than a list of papers that would help. Provenance: the Schedule 1 placement and the printed entry «كوكايين» were read on 20 September 2026, and the capital analysis for this row rests on Article 57 and not on the Schedule 10 weight bands. Anyone travelling with a cocaine containing medicine has a question this dossier does not answer, and it belongs with the health ministry before departure rather than at the border.

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.