Kuwait’s New Narcotics Law: Comply, Comply, Comply!

Kuwait’s recently published Narcotics Law (159/2025) (“New Narcotics Law”) represents the most significant restructuring of Kuwait’s narcotics legislation, unifying and replacing the former Narcotics Law (74/1983) and Psychotropics Law (48/1987). The New Narcotics Law consolidates the regulation of narcotic substances, psychotropic substances, their preparations, and chemical precursors into a single regime, while expanding the scope of professional and legal accountability for medical practitioners, pharmacists, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, shipping and transport operators, and research institutions. What emerges is a substantially more compliance-intensive system, reflecting Kuwait’s push against illicit drug trading.

This note specifically explores the compliance obligations of certain practitioners, like doctors and pharmacists, and certain corporate entities, like healthcare facility operators and pharmacies, under the New Narcotics Law.

Medical Practitioners and Healthcare Facilities

Under the New Narcotics Law, physicians face tighter controls than under the repealed laws. Article 20 of the New Narcotics Law requires that prescriptions for narcotic and psychotropic substances be medically justified and issued only on Ministry of Health-approved (“Ministry”) “special prescription” forms. It also introduces strict quantity limits of up to a 14-day supply for narcotics and up to two months’ supply for psychotropics, unless a ministerial exception applies.

The long-standing ban on self-prescribing is reaffirmed in the New Narcotics Law: physicians may not prescribe these substances for themselves or for relatives to the second degree, i.e. for parents, grandparents and siblings. The emergency dispensing of narcotics before a prescription is issued is still allowed but now requires more rigorous documentation, including entries in Ministry-approved registers and compliance with stricter storage rules deriving from Articles 22 and 37–38. These provisions collectively require emergency-dispensed narcotics be kept in their proper medical form without alteration, and in a manner that enables accurate 24-hour inventory recording and auditing.

Healthcare facilities must keep detailed, up-to-date records of all narcotics and psychotropics received, dispensed, and held. Articles 37–39 require data entry within 24 hours and quarterly reports submitted directly to the Ministry. Unlike the repealed laws, which referenced manual logs and statements being hand-delivered or sent via post, the New Narcotics Law mandates digital record-keeping and allows the Ministry to require parallel electronic and hard-copy systems.

Pharmacists and Pharmacies

Pharmacists are also subject to stricter rules. Article 24 of the New Narcotics Law bars dispensing any narcotic or psychotropic substance without a valid prescription from a licensed physician or the Ministry. Prescriptions expire after 5 days and cannot be refilled or reused.

Pharmacies must keep the original prescription and give the patient an authenticated copy showing the pharmacist’s signature, pharmacy seal, dispensing date, and exact quantity provided. The New Narcotics Law also requires Ministry-stamped or Ministry-approved electronic registers for all controlled substances received or dispensed, along with quarterly reports to the Ministry detailing stocks and transactions.

Veterinarians and Veterinary Facilities

Veterinarians, who were previously only lightly regulated, are now subject to a much stricter framework. Article 23 limits them to prescribing narcotics or psychotropics solely for treating animals and only if they hold an annual licence from the Ministry of Health. Veterinarians and facility directors must also follow the same possession, record-keeping, and return procedures that apply to human-health practitioners.

Pharmaceutical Companies, Factories, Warehouses, and Distributors

The New Narcotics Law imposes far broader obligations on pharmaceutical companies, greatly expanding government oversight on the controlled-substance supply chain. Articles 7–12 and 32 create a detailed licensing system governing the import, export, manufacture, packaging, and transport of narcotic and psychotropic substances. The Minister of Health may deny applications or reduce approved quantities, and any licence to import, export, transport, manufacture, distribute, or trade in narcotics or psychotropics not used within 90 days automatically expires.

Factories may use controlled substances only for Ministry-authorised purposes and must label all products with Ministry-specified instructions and warnings under Article 33. These requirements go well beyond the previous laws, which required only basic labelling.

The New Narcotics Law also introduces a new stringent reporting duty: all licensees must record every receipt or disbursement of controlled substances within 24 hours, documenting the parties involved, quantities, percentages, and batch details. Factories, warehouses, and distributors must additionally file quarterly reports, creating a fully integrated monitoring system across the supply chain.

Shipping, Transport, and Import/Export Operators

The New Narcotics Law imposes far more demanding obligations on logistics and shipping operators that handle parcels containing narcotic or psychotropic substances. Article 13 bans transporting these substances in mixed packages, even if they are in sample quantities, and they must be shipped in insured parcels with precise labelling of the substance, its nature, quantity, and concentration.

Customs procedures are also tightened. Articles 11–12 require a Ministry-issued release permit or export licence, with the General Administration of Customs (“Customs”) responsible for verifying conformity with licence specifications, returning documents to the Ministry, and keeping copies. Any mismatch can lead to refusal, seizure, or criminal liability.

Accordingly, shipping companies face significantly higher compliance obligations. Whereas the earlier laws imposed only basic import/export controls, these provisions of the New Narcotics Law significantly extend regulatory visibility over the transport process. Carriers now have express obligations to ensure that accepted parcels comply with packaging, documentation and labelling requirements. A carrier that knowingly accepts undeclared, mislabelled, or improperly packaged controlled substances may incur legal liability.

Airlines, Ships, and Foreign Carriers

Article 29 allows pilots of international public aircraft and captains of Kuwaiti-registered ships to carry limited quantities of psychotropic substances for first-aid and emergency use. Foreign carriers may do so as well, but only with authorisation from their home state.

Universities, Research Centres, and Scientific Institutions

The New Narcotics Law also broadens regulation of scientific work involving controlled plants. Articles 34–36 permits the issuance of licences for cultivating or importing controlled plants strictly for medical or research purposes. Licensees must keep full records, follow storage and security requirements, and comply with rules on returning or destroying materials.

These provisions replace the limited authorisations in the 1983 law, which allowed certain institutions to cultivate prohibited plants but lacked detailed safeguards. The new framework creates a clearer, more tightly regulated system for scientific handling of controlled materials.

Compliance Duties Across All Sectors

Several obligations now apply to all licensees, whether medical, commercial, and academic. All transactions involving narcotics or psychotropics must be recorded within 24 hours in Ministry-approved registers, in paper or electronic form, and records must be kept for at least 3 years. The Ministry may also require dual-format storage. Licensees must report any change in activity or closure within 30 days, and all unused controlled substances must be returned or surrendered according to Ministry procedures.

Articles 42–46 of the New Narcotics Law impose severe and highly differentiated penalties in cases whereby non-compliance crosses into unlawful handling of controlled substances. These include:

– Any person or company that imports, exports, produces, or manufactures narcotic or psychotropic substances without a license faces life imprisonment, and may face the death penalty if aggravating factors apply, provided there is evidence of trafficking intent.

– Handling narcotics or psychotropics outside authorised professional purposes can lead to (i) imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines up to KD 10,000 for prohibited possession related to personal use; or (ii) imprisonment of 5–10 years and fines of KD 5,000–10,000 for professional or institutional possession outside the scope of authorised activity.

– Companies may be held criminally liable under general Kuwait criminal law principles when offences are committed in their name or for their benefit by authorised personnel. Sanctions include facility closure, suspension or revocation of licenses, financial penalties, and criminal liability for managers or responsible officers.

– Administrative non-compliance such as late entries, incomplete registers, delayed reporting etc., are not treated as trafficking offences. Instead, they face administrative fines, regulatory warnings, orders to amend or resubmit records, or temporary suspension of licenses.

Areas of Importance in the New Narcotics Law

There are a few additional noteworthy aspects of the New Narcotics Law:

The statute defines “possession,” “promotion,” and “barter” very broadly, however, this does not mean a practitioner or employee who simply fails to update a register will be treated as if they are participating in drug trading. Administrative breaches result in administrative or licensing consequences, whereas criminal offences relating to promotion, distribution, or diversion require evidence of intent and affirmative misuse of controlled substances. Although the definitions are broad, ordinary compliance mistakes are not automatically criminalised.

Emergency-dispensing rules for physicians lack detail on what qualifies as an “emergency”. And until implementing regulations are issued, key procedures for destruction, return, and reporting remain thinly described, creating operational uncertainty.

The New Narcotics Law is a restructure of how Kuwait regulates controlled substances across every professional and commercial sector. Professionals, particularly physicians, pharmacists, veterinarian, pharmaceutical companies and logistic operators now all fall under a unified traceable regulatory system built on stricter licensing requirements, real-time data reporting, and transparent supply-chain movement. Institutions must therefore strengthen their internal controls, retrain competent staff, and update pertinent policies.

In short, the new regime makes one thing clear to pertinent professionals and companies: comply, comply, comply!