Is Scopolamine (Devil's Breath) legal in Belize?

Legal status

Scopolamine, which the Belize statute book calls hyoscine, is a listed poison in Belize and not a controlled drug. The Chemists and Druggists Act, Chapter 311, prints «Hyoscine» in its Schedule 1 Poisons List under the heading «Alkaloids, the following; their salts, simple or complex», between «Homatropine» and «Hyoscyamine», with nothing entered against it in the column of exemptions, and the same list carries «Belladonna, alkaloids of» and «Solanaceous alkaloids not otherwise included in this List». Scopolamine and hyoscine return nothing in Schedule II of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 103, or in the five schedules of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations, both read as printed in the Revised Edition 2020 showing the laws as at 31 December 2020 with S.I. 132 of 2020 and the amending Acts No. 25 of 2023 and No. 26 of 2024, so section 4 of that Act does not make it a controlled drug. The Chemists and Druggists Act volume is the Revised Edition 2020, and its only later amendment found, Act No. 39 of 2021, changes a title and nothing else.

Consequences if caught

Because it is not a controlled drug, the possession offences in section 7(1), section 7(2) and section 7(3) of the Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 103, and the drug trafficking penalties in section 18 do not reach it; the Misuse of Drugs Act 1990, Act 22 of 1990, as UNODC holds it, numbered those penalties section 17, punishment section 27 and the smoking offence, now section 12, section 11. Schedule III, which section 28 applies to every Act offence other than drug trafficking, attaches no punishment to it, and Regulation 4 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations, which lifts the section 5(1) import and export prohibition for Schedules IV and V and the section 7 possession prohibition for a Schedule IV drug in a medicinal product and a Schedule V drug, has nothing to lift. Like every answer drawn from Schedule II, this one would change if an Order made after 31 December 2020 and not listed on the portal had added it. The Act read is the Revised Edition 2020; the 1990 text runs from section 1 and stops inside section 28, and carries none of its Schedules. The Chemists and Druggists Act governs who may sell it. Section 2 of the Chemists and Druggists Act defines «poison» as «the articles named and described in the First Schedule» together with any article the Minister adds by Order. Section 22(1) forbids any person to sell, retail, dispense or compound drugs or poisons in a shop unless the shop is under the immediate personal control of a registered chemist and druggist and the sale is made by or under that person's direct charge. Section 23(1) forbids selling any poison to a person under twelve years of age except on the prescription of a registered medical practitioner, and section 23(3) sets a fine of up to two hundred and fifty dollars or imprisonment of up to three months, or both. Section 25(1) requires every container of a poison sold to be labelled with the name of the article, the word «poison» and the seller's name and address, and forbids selling a poison to a person unknown to the seller unless introduced by someone the seller knows; section 25(2) requires a signed entry in the poison book. Section 25(4) punishes a sale otherwise than in accordance with section 25 with a fine of up to fifty dollars for a first offence and two hundred dollars for a second or later one. Every one of those provisions is addressed to a seller. None of sections 22 to 29 of the Chemists and Druggists Act, read as at 31 December 2020 with Act No. 39 of 2021, makes possession by a buyer an offence. Covertly giving scopolamine to another person is a matter for the general criminal law, which was not read for this row.

If prescribed or medical

Section 23(1) of the Chemists and Druggists Act requires a prescription of a registered medical practitioner only for a sale to a person under twelve years of age, and the fuller prescription requirement in section 23(2) names the sulphonamide group of drugs and not hyoscine. So the Act itself requires a registered chemist and druggist's shop, a labelled container and a poison book entry, not a prescription, for an adult buyer. A transdermal motion sickness patch is a medicinal form of hyoscine; whether the medicines registration regime under the Food and Drugs Act adds a prescription requirement was not established, because the Food and Drugs Act and its subsidiary volume were searched and print no prescription list.

Documentation

Carry it in its original labelled packaging, with the prescription and a letter from the prescriber naming the patient, the active ingredient, the dose, the quantity and the treatment period if it was prescribed. For this row the fact to carry is the printed entry «Hyoscine» in the Chemists and Druggists Act Poisons List. Read on 3 October 2026.

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