Is Heroin legal in United Arab Emirates?

Also known as: diacetylmorphine, smack

Legal status

Heroin is placed in Schedule 1 of Decision No. 158 of 2025 at the printed entry «هيروين؛ ثنائي أسيتيل مورفين», which carries the common name and the diacetylmorphine chemical name in the same entry. Printing both closes the gap that a laboratory certificate naming only the chemical form would otherwise open, since the schedule reaches the substance under either description. Schedule 1 is the narcotics schedule itself, so the federal handling, personal use and trafficking provisions apply directly to the row. The dossier attaches Articles 10, 41 and 57 and states the content of Article 57 only. Schedule 10 carries the quantity bands. The placement was read on 20 September 2026.

Consequences if caught

Schedule 1 is one of the four schedule groups Article 57 names, and heroin's entry is in Schedule 1. The dossier records Article 57 as stating mandatory death for its trafficking or promotion trigger and as stating no quantity for it, so the capital route on the substance most readers already associate with the severest treatment is nonetheless not a threshold route. It records separately that the Schedule 10 bands do not gate that route, which means the weight bands that do exist in the instrument answer a different question. The reason to be precise about this rather than to report the outcome loosely is that a threshold rule can be reasoned about with a number and a schedule rule cannot, and only one of those two is what this article contains. Article 41 carries the personal use route for this branch, its tariff unstated.

If prescribed or medical

The dossier records at the modafinil row that a 268 entry ministry travellers list was checked and expressly not used as a schedule. Attached to this substance: heroin is in Schedule 1 under both the common and the diacetylmorphine name, and the dossier records no medicinal preparation, prescribing route or permit for it in the United Arab Emirates. Diamorphine is prescribed in some health systems, and nothing in this dossier extends that to the Emirati placement, so the question is deferred rather than answered by analogy.

Documentation

No document recorded in this dossier makes carriage of heroin or of a diacetylmorphine preparation lawful, so on this record there is nothing to carry. Provenance: the Schedule 1 placement and the entry «هيروين؛ ثنائي أسيتيل مورفين» were read on 20 September 2026, with the capital analysis resting on Article 57 and not on the Schedule 10 bands. A traveller prescribed diamorphine in another health system has a question the dossier does not answer, and it belongs with the health ministry before departure.

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.