Is Ketamine legal in Gibraltar (UK)?

Legal status

Class C controlled drug under Gibraltar's Crimes Act 2011. Ketamine is named in Schedule 5, the list of controlled drugs made under sections 500(1) and 502, among the Class C drugs. Gibraltar is not governed by the United Kingdom Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and its punishments differ from it.

Consequences if caught

Gibraltar does use the three classes, and to a reader this is the territory that looks most like the United Kingdom: the same Class A, Class B and Class C, the same offence structure, and drug law set out at sections 500 to 524 of the Crimes Act 2011 rather than in a Misuse of Drugs Act. The separate Drugs (Misuse) Act is marked repealed on the Gibraltar law portal. The resemblance stops at the punishment table. Schedule 8, made under section 524, sets production under section 504(2), supply under section 504(3) and possession with intent to supply under section 506(3) at life imprisonment or a fine, or both, on indictment, and it does so for a Class A drug and for a Class B drug alike. Only Class C is capped, at fourteen years. In the United Kingdom the equivalent maximum for a Class B drug is fourteen years. So supplying a Class B drug in Gibraltar carries life where the same conduct in the United Kingdom does not, and a reader who assumes the 1971 Act applies will understate the exposure by the whole distance between fourteen years and life. Simple possession, the section 506(2) offence, is the part that does match. On indictment it is seven years for a Class A drug, five years for a Class B drug and two years for a Class C drug, which are the United Kingdom figures. Summary conviction is twelve months for Class A and Class B and nine months for Class C, with a fine at level 5 or level 4 on the standard scale. Ketamine is a Class C drug in Gibraltar and a Class B drug in the United Kingdom, read from the consolidated Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Possession on indictment is therefore capped at two years here against five there. When either list moved, and in which direction, is not stated: that would need the amending orders, and they were not read. Every statement above about which class a drug is in is true as at a date, and the date is this. Section 502(2) lets the Minister by order add a substance to, or remove one from, any of Parts I to III of Schedule 5, so a class moves without the Act changing. The consolidation read here was fetched from the Gibraltar law portal on 16 September 2026 and carries no out of date marker, and the latest Legal Notice appearing anywhere in its text is LN. 2021/328. Which notice last touched Schedule 5 is not stated in the text and is not asserted here, so this cell does not rule out a later order.

If prescribed or medical

The Act works by exempting things done under regulations and licences rather than by creating a defence on the face of the drug offences. The Gibraltar regulations that authorise a prescribed supply were not read for this cell, so the conditions attaching to one are not stated here.

Documentation

Carry any prescribed controlled medicine in its original dispensed packaging with the prescription. Nothing read here establishes a personal import allowance for Gibraltar, and the United Kingdom Home Office allowance does not apply: Gibraltar is a separate jurisdiction with its own statute. Gibraltar has a land frontier with Spain and the two regimes do not resemble each other. Crossing it with a controlled drug is an importation or exportation in one direction or the other, and what is lawful on one side of the frontier decides nothing about the other. This cell states Gibraltar law only. The Spanish position is not asserted here, because the Spanish instrument that would settle it was not located.

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