Is DXM legal in Bahamas?

Legal status

Not controlled, and uniquely among the rows here it is excluded in terms. The 1994 Application Order's List of Drugs Included in Schedule I carries a footnote reading «Dextromethorphan ((+)-3-methoxy-N-methylmorphinan) and dextrorphan ((+)-3-hydroxy-N-methylmorphinan) are isomers specifically excluded from this Schedule». The point of the exclusion is that the mirror image compounds are listed: «Levomethorphan», «Racemethorphan», «Levorphanol», «Norlevorphenol» and «Racemorphan» all appear as Schedule I entries. So this is an express carve out and not a gap, and it stands as those schedules stand after S.I. 50 of 1996.

Consequences if caught

No offence under Chapter 228 attaches to a substance that neither the Act nor the Application Order reaches, because every offence in the Act is framed around a drug to which the Act or a Part of it applies. One offence is still capable of applying: section 29(1)(f) with section 29(10) makes it an offence to solicit a person for the purpose of selling a dangerous drug, or to obtain money by representing that a substance is a dangerous drug when it is not. The exclusion is from the Schedule itself, so the drug is not one to which Part IV applies and no quantity of it engages section 22.

If prescribed or medical

Chapter 228 does not reach it, so no authority under section 24 of that Act is needed to hold it. Chapter 228 is not the only law that can apply. The Pharmacy Act, the medicines law and the food and excise law of The Bahamas were not read for this cell and may regulate manufacture, sale or import independently of the drugs Act. The exclusion says nothing about over the counter sale, which is a medicines question and not a drugs Act one.

Documentation

This is the only express exclusion of a named substance found anywhere in the two operative instruments. The schedule placement stated here is not printed in the quotation column of the dossier read for this cell; it was read directly from the instrument text. No Ministerial Order later than S.I. 50 of 1996 was read for this cell, so a later addition by Order under section 6, section 11(3) or section 12(3) of the Act is not excluded. The Dangerous Drugs (Application) Order, 2024 was read and is not relied on: it carries no Statutory Instrument number, no signature and a blank execution block reading Made this day of 2024, and the Bahamas legislation portal serves it from its Bills directory rather than its subsidiary legislation directory.

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