Is Etizolam legal in Brunei?

Legal status

Not a controlled drug in Brunei. Absent from Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IIIA of the First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 27 of the Laws of Brunei Darussalam, Revised Edition 2013 (B.L.R.O. 2/2013), from both parts of its Third Schedule, and from all four substantive schedules to the Regulations. Searched as "Etizolam" and "azolam", and no entry under that name or any synonym searched for it appears in either instrument.

Consequences if caught

Etizolam carries no penalty under the Misuse of Drugs Act in Brunei, because no offence in the Act reaches it. The Part II offences in sections 3, 3A, 4, 5 and 6 are each framed as an offence in relation to a controlled drug, and section 2 confines that to "any substance or product which is for the time being specified in Part I, II or III of the First Schedule to this Act or anything that contains any such substance or product". What decides it for etizolam is that no entry under that name or any synonym searched for it appears in either instrument. Searching the four parts of the First Schedule, both parts of the Third Schedule and the four substantive schedules to the Regulations under "Etizolam" and "azolam" returned nothing. Capital and life exposure. Death is not available, and neither is any penalty under this Act. The substance is not a controlled drug, so no offence in Part II is engaged by it and no column of the Second Schedule is reached. The specified drug column, the only one in which death appears, names only opium, morphine, diamorphine, cocaine, cannabis, cannabis resin, methylamphetamine and MDMA. Where death does appear it is mandatory. Section 29(2) provides that the columns "show respectively the punishments to be imposed on a person convicted of the offence", and each death row gives death alone with no maximum, no minimum and no alternative. No provision of the Act confers a sentencing discretion on a capital conviction. The Act creates no sentence of life imprisonment. The phrase appears nowhere in its text, and the longest determinate term it reaches is 30 years.

If prescribed or medical

Neither the Misuse of Drugs Act nor its Regulations governs the prescribing or supply of etizolam. Neither instrument names it, and no entry under that name or any synonym searched for it appears in either instrument. No register, requisition or prescription requirement in the Regulations attaches to it, since every one of those is keyed to a scheduled controlled drug. What was not checked for this cell is Brunei's medicines and poisons regime, which is a separate body of law that was not fetched. Absence from the Misuse of Drugs Act is not a statement that a substance is freely available.

Documentation

No document is required for etizolam under the Misuse of Drugs Act, because the Act does not reach it. No entry under that name or any synonym searched for it appears in either instrument. That is a statement about one Act and no wider. A traveller carrying a prescribed medicine should still carry the prescription and keep the product in its labelled dispensed container. What was not checked for this cell is Brunei's medicines and poisons regime, which is a separate body of law that was not fetched. Absence from the Misuse of Drugs Act is not a statement that a substance is freely available.

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