Is Opium legal in Ukraine?

Legal status

Controlled in Ukraine as the raw plant exudate, under its own heading. Постанова № 770, таблиці I to IV, consolidated text read on 20 September 2026, prints «Опій» at CAS 8008-60-4 and record UKR-71 accepts that row; the heading is in sentence case here because the list prints in capitals. The registry number identifies the natural mixture rather than any single alkaloid, which is what distinguishes this heading from the two alkaloid headings printed separately in the same list at CAS 57-27-2 and CAS 561-27-3. So Ukraine reaches the raw material and the isolated compounds through different entries, and material that is neither pure alkaloid nor raw exudate has to be identified before a heading can be chosen.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Ukraine has abolished the death penalty and no drug article restores it. The trade article the source names is Кримінальний кодекс України, стаття 307, twelve years of imprisonment at the ceiling of its third part, no life sentence provided. Because the heading at CAS 8008-60-4 is matched, наказ МОЗ № 188 supplies the small, large and especially large bands for the raw material. Poppy straw, pods and home prepared liquids sit awkwardly between the headings, and this source neither reproduces the bands nor states how such material is classified, so nothing of that kind is asserted. No separate possession article is named. Separately from that, and carried forward from this site's published Ukraine entry rather than re-derived from the Code in this pass, the published penalties are these. Personal use of a small amount is administrative under article 44 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, a fine of 25 to 50 tax free minimum incomes, 20 to 60 hours of community service, or administrative arrest of up to 15 days. Above small, personal use under article 309 is criminal, a fine, correctional labour of up to two years, or restriction of liberty of up to five years, rising to up to three years where aggravated or large and up to eight years where a minor is involved. Trafficking or sale under article 307 draws four to twelve years with property forfeiture. Smuggling under article 305 draws five to eight years, and up to eight to ten years aggravated. The published entry records the small, large and especially large quantity thresholds as very low, and that trace amounts have triggered article 309. Drug use itself, other than in public, is not criminal there. Every figure in this paragraph is a penalty range or a fine and none of them is a quantity threshold. They describe the offences that this row's placement in the Ukrainian list brings into play.

If prescribed or medical

Ukraine allows no personal use quantity, наказ МОЗ № 188 grades criminal conduct rather than licensing carriage, and a scheduled medicine must additionally satisfy Закон України «Про лікарські засоби» on prescription, packaging, import and customs. On this row the placement is a matched heading at CAS 8008-60-4. Preparations of opium tincture remain in use in a few health systems for infant withdrawal and for severe diarrhoea, and this source establishes no Ukrainian authorised product, no import permit and no recognition of a foreign prescription. None was researched.

Documentation

Carry nothing in reliance on a culinary or horticultural description of poppy material, because the Ukrainian heading at CAS 8008-60-4 is written to the exudate and the alkaloids are printed separately. Where a tincture or a similar preparation has genuinely been prescribed, carry the prescription, the original dispensing bottle with the pharmacy label in the patient's name and a prescriber's letter naming the preparation, the strength, the dose, the indication and the total volume. The heading was read in the consolidated list on 20 September 2026.

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