Medicines from Dubai?

Do the pharmacies in Dubai have stocks of Xanax ( Alprazolam) and Fluoxetine ?

• We will be visiting Dubai in a week. I read in official sites that many of the medicines are banned by the Customs and you cannot bring them in Dubai. The process for authenticating ...show more

• Answer:

  You say: [I know how ridiculous and idiotic their list is but I cannot take the risk to take the medicine with us and be arrested by a dogmatic police and get jailed] Who ever told you that? even if you had banned medications on you , those items will simply be confiscated or placed into a holding area until you can obtain/produce the necessary documentation/prescription , if that was the reason. You will be given a slip (receipt) in that case to reclaim the item after approval has been secured. There is no arrest involved as you are not doing any criminal thing (except for people trying to smuggle addictive drugs to UAE in normal vitamin and bulk medicine bottles --they would go to jail , not you as a patient with valid reason to take it) , but they are following UAE ministry of Health guidelines to control certain medications and ban others , as H has explained it ; it is not hard to get your personal medication approved. You can also take your prescription to a UAE doctor and ask them to issue a valid prescription that you can buy from UAE pharmacies ; in case you need more pills than what is allowed by customs. Quote from Dubi customs website: "• Passenger cannot carry medicines even if it is for personal use in bulk quantity. It may be impounded and can be a criminal case. • Prescription from the doctor to bring the drugs with you only for the period you are going to stay at Dubai. • It may required a special permission from the Ministry of health to carry more than convincing quantity of medicines. • As per customs rule all type of medicines subject to approve by Ministry of Health and Medical Services, for this reason if any medicines are hand carried customs refer to Ministry of Health if ministry disapprove then such medicines are detained. For all detained items customs issue detain slips. You can also take approval from Ministry of Health with doctors prescription and take stamp of ministry on the detain slip." please see these pages: http://www.dubaicustoms.ae/Content/TravelersInfo/TravelersAffair/ http://www.dubaicustoms.ae/Content/CustomerCare/FAQ/