Is Pregabalin legal in Vietnam?

Legal status

Not named in the danh mục. Pregabalin is absent from Decree 28/2026’s four lists, so it has no schedule-based Article 248, 250 or 251 quantity tier in this build. Pregabalin does not appear in any of the four danh mục annexed to Nghị định 28/2026/NĐ-CP as those lists stand on 19 January 2026, and an absence from the list is not a finding that it is lawful in Vietnam. This cell does not say that it is.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Pregabalin is absent from Decree 28/2026’s four lists, so it has no schedule-based Article 248, 250 or 251 quantity tier in this build. Articles 248 to 252 of the Criminal Code are each written about a chất ma túy, and Luật Phòng, chống ma túy số 73/2021/QH14, Điều 2 khoản 1, defines that term as a substance the Government has placed in the danh mục. Pregabalin is not in that list, so producing it is not article 248, possessing it is not article 249, transporting it is not article 250, trading it is not article 251 and appropriating it is not article 252. None of the five conducts engages those articles, and no quantity alters that, because the quantity ladders sit inside articles that never open. One reason for that is carried forward from the published 2cb entry and was not re-derived from the decree text in this pass: the four danh mục extend to muối, đồng phân, ester, ether and muối của đồng phân, that is salts, isomers, esters, ethers and salts of isomers, and they do not extend to analogues, because the words tương tự and đồng đẳng appear nowhere in the decree. A substance that is not printed, and is not a salt, isomer, ester or ether of something printed, is outside the definition rather than arguably inside it. Two things still qualify all of this. Điều 3 khoản 6 routes a newly identified substance through Bộ Công an to the Government, so the list moves and a substance absent today can be added tomorrow. And this is a statement about the narcotics law only: Vietnam's pharmaceutical, customs and administrative rules were not read for this cell and may reach Pregabalin independently of the Criminal Code.

If prescribed or medical

The dossier this cell is written from carries no prescription column, so no medical route for Pregabalin is stated here and none was derived from anything else. There is no placement to attach either: the dossier does not print Pregabalin in any of the four danh mục, and the published 2cb entry records the same absence. A substance outside the danh mục has no narcotics prescription route to describe, which is a different thing from saying it may be carried freely. Whether Pregabalin can lawfully be prescribed in Vietnam, in what form, and what a traveller carrying it would have to show, is deferred and not answered here. This pass did not read Vietnam's pharmaceutical, import or customs rules, and a substance outside the narcotics law can still be refused at a border.

Documentation

Where the rule for Pregabalin comes from, and how far it reaches in time. Two instruments do two different jobs. The list: Luật Phòng, chống ma túy số 73/2021/QH14, Điều 2 khoản 1, provides that a chất ma túy is a substance the Government has placed in the danh mục, so the Government and not the National Assembly decides what counts, and it does so by decree. The decree in force is Nghị định 28/2026/NĐ-CP, issued and effective 19 January 2026, whose Điều 3 khoản 2 repeals Nghị định 57/2022/NĐ-CP and Nghị định 90/2024/NĐ-CP, and whose Điều 1 reads “Ban hành kèm theo Nghị định này Phụ lục các danh mục chất ma túy và tiền chất sau đây”, that is, issued with this decree is the appendix containing the following lists of narcotics and precursors. The published 2cb entry counted that appendix as four danh mục in seven parts and 694 entries, a count carried forward here and not re-made in this pass. The offence: Bộ luật Hình sự số 100/2015/QH13 as amended by Luật số 86/2025/QH15, khoản 18 Điều 1, enacted 25 June 2025 and in force 1 July 2025, which substituted the drug articles in full and is the reason this cell separates the conducts instead of saying that Vietnam has the death penalty for drugs. The consolidated Criminal Code text read for the article wording is văn bản hợp nhất số 135/VBHN-VPQH. The search behind this row. The dossier's instrument column records the terms used as: pregabalin. That is a record that somebody looked, and it is not a printed schedule entry. The published 2cb entry records the same row as not listed, which is carried forward from the published 2cb entry and not re-derived from the decree text in this pass. The horizon. This cell is written as those lists stand after Nghị định 28/2026/NĐ-CP, in force 19 January 2026, and the dossier behind it records its own date checked as 17 September 2026. The power that moves the list is Điều 3 khoản 6 of the decree, which reads “Khi phát hiện chất mới chưa có trong các danh mục chất ma túy và tiền chất ban hành kèm theo Nghị định này … trình Chính phủ sửa đổi, bổ sung và công bố các danh mục đó.”, that is, when a new substance not yet in the lists is discovered, the Ministry of Public Security submits it to the Government to amend, supplement and publish the lists. What the text in hand incorporates is the 2026 appendix together with the Criminal Code as it stands after 1 July 2025, and nothing here was checked against an amendment published after 19 January 2026. This cell does not rule out a later amendment made under that power. Two limits of the source, stated because they bear on how much weight this row can take. The dossier has no search log column of its own, so on a row where nothing was found there is no way to tell a blank from a row nobody searched, and where its instrument column happens to record search terms that is a record of looking rather than a schedule entry. And the decree is a scanned signed document: the published 2cb entry records that it was rendered at 600 dots per inch and read with optical character recognition in Vietnamese, and that normalisation to NFC was needed before any Vietnamese string could be searched against the cached text, because the cache mixes composed and decomposed forms and a literal search returns a false zero. That method note is carried forward from the published 2cb entry and not re-derived from the decree text in this pass.

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