Hey, my friend might be visiting later this month. He’s ADD or ADHD and has an Adderall prescription. However, he heard Adderall is illegal here. He’s prescribed it though and it’s in his pill bottle with his name. It’s also just a relatively small amount for personal use too. Would he have any trouble if customs saw it? He doesn’t want to get it confiscated, risk deportation, or worse, but he also doesn’t like the idea of being sneaky about it.
See Article 18 of the Enforcement Rules for the Controlled Drugs Act. Adderall looks to be Schedule 2.
Article 18
A patient who brings into the country for legitimate personal use Schedule 1, 2 or 3 controlled drugs or departs from the country with same must have a statement, along with the physician’s diagnosis letter recording the name of illness, the procedure of treatment, and the reasons for treating such illness with controlled drugs and file same with the FDA for reference.
The patient’s statement shall include the following items:
- The name, birth date, residence and passport number of the patient.
- The name, specification and amount of the controlled drugs bought in or out of the country.
- The period of time in or out of the country.
- The ports for entry or exit.
Also here:
https://www.ocac.gov.tw/OCAC/Eng/Pages/Detail.aspx?nodeid=329&pid=53532127
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Thanks. So a prescrip bottle and simple doctor’s note wouldn’t be enough. Looks like they really want to discourage it. I’ll probably tell him it’s not worth the risk.
It’s not convenient. You can write to the FDA and fill out the attestation letter. I think you need a prescription or doctor’s note. It is kind of a pain.
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Quick follow up. I told him Adderall is illegal here, but Ritalin can be prescribed. He said his doctor can switch him to that. I looked it up and that’s Schedule III as opposed to Add which is Sched II. Could he fly in with that in a prescription bottle and not get in trouble if found? I know it’s a pain. I told him he should just leave the meds at home, but he’s insistent.
I think “unlicensed” would be more accurate than “illegal”, no? Both of them seem to fall under “controlled drugs” anyway and thus appear to be treated the same for this purpose…
There’s at least one thread on Reddit about this, but see also the table here:
https://web.customs.gov.tw/etaipei/singlehtml/3396?cntId=1c1ab06901934524b5c7494c42251bf7
and here:
https://www.taoyuan-airport.com/selfdrugs?lang=en
These read to me like he just needs a prescription (in both cases, so probably not worth going to the hassle of changing meds over). There’s a number on that first link – maybe it would be worth calling them up to check?
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All right, thanks. He has a prescription and can get a doctors note, but at least for the Adderall it sounded like he needed to get additional docs like an FDA letter or something. In any case, I’ll check out the Reddit thread.