Dubai customs

My DH and I are both senior citizens and take various meds every day, all are prescriptions and include some pain meds. We have heard that it is very difficult to bring prescription meds into Dubai. We leave on an 18 day cruise plus a few days there and on the other end. Has anyone had experience with this? Are there RX drugs that are not allowed??Any help and guidance would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

Check this out.

 

http://www.uaeinteract.com/travel/drug.asp

Edited September 30, 2014 by Scrapnana

Thank you.

Thanks for the link. I appreciate it.

 

This is scary. How does one get their prescription drugs authenticated by the Secretary of State for both the state and the country???? Yikes!!!

Thanks for the link. I appreciate it.

 

This is scary. How does one get their prescription drugs authenticated by the Secretary of State for both the state and the country???? Yikes!!!

 

Easy answer, spend your money in a country which is more "user friendly."

Easy answer, spend your money in a country which is more "user friendly."

 

Would love to, but our cruise leaves from there! There must be more to the restrictions than they say, as they are a very frequently visited place.

There must be more to the restrictions than they say, as they are a very frequently visited place.

My sister lived there for about seven years, and with an insider's knowledge always advised us to abide strictly by the regulations.

 

On one trip, I was supposed to stop in London between Sydney and Dubai, where I was going to do a clothes swap at home and unload all my (non-prescription) medicines that wouldn't be allowed into Dubai. Unexpectedly, I had to fly straight from Sydney to Dubai, so I ended up having to throw away quite a bit of stuff in Sydney.

 

If you don't follow the rules, you've probably got something like a 99% chance of getting away with it because you don't get caught, and a 1% chance of languishing in a UAE prison for a number of weeks before you get deported. The latter category includes people who'd eaten bread decorated with poppy seeds and people with tiny bits of cannabis (marijuana) inadvertently stuck to the soles of their shoes.

 

If you do a search, there are a number of previous threads on this forum with advice from a variety of people so you may want to try that for some other views.

. The latter category includes people who'd eaten bread decorated with poppy seeds and people with tiny bits of cannabis (marijuana) inadvertently stuck to the soles of their shoes.

 

 

 

Give me a break... Tiny bits of canabis stuck to sole of shoes. What have you been smoking.

 

I have been traveling for 20 years to the UAE and have never been stopped. Just make sure you are not a drug factory and just take what you need in prescript bottles. The little girls at the Xray machines are looking for excessive liquor and cigarettes.

 

The list that a reader cited is a list of restricted drugs because the manufacturer has a local agent in UAE that agent is restricting the import of the items.

Give me a break... Tiny bits of canabis stuck to sole of shoes. What have you been smoking.

Nothing. These are reported cases.

I have been travelling for 20 years to the UAE and have never been stopped.

But have you ever lived there?

 

Do you treat the Dubai Code of Conduct with the same nonchalance? Indeed, have you ever read it?

The list that a reader cited is a list of restricted drugs because the manufacturer has a local agent in UAE that agent is restricting the import of the items.

So even though it's not OK to bring in pholcodine in Tixylix (restricted because the local agent asked for it to be banned), it's OK to bring in pholcodine in Day Nurse (which doesn't appear on the list and therefore doesn't have a distributor)? That would be the logic of this argument.

 

And if this is right, why are there many medications for which there's a local agent but which aren't on this restricted list? Including medications that are available over-the-counter in Dubai but are usually prescription-only elsewhere (eg salbutamol/Ventolin)?

 

For those who'd like to consider an alternative hypothesis for why pholcodine is a banned medication, it's because it's an opioid. And if you like that hypothesis, you might like to think about following the advice in relation to that list.

We had photocopies of all of our prescriptions. We carried a limited amount of each drug in its labelled bottle. The one drug I use for fear of flying, and which was prohibited, I took in an extremely small amount. They didn't question anything.

 

 

Shirley, Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

We had photocopies of all of our prescriptions. We carried a limited amount of each drug in its labelled bottle. The one drug I use for fear of flying, and which was prohibited, I took in an extremely small amount. They didn't question anything.

 

 

Shirley, Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

For sharing that info with us. It is a big help.