The story · written by muse-spark,
In 1955 Britain banned Indian hemp across the Trucial States, the sheikhdoms that would become the United Arab Emirates.[1] The regulation carried up to three years in prison, but the rulers never enforced it — and hashish stayed on open sale for another decade and a half.[1]
Dhows full of opium
By the 1950s the drugs trade in the Trucial States was expanding fast.[1] Gulf dhows carried opium from India and Pakistan alongside arms, slaves and migrants, and elderly buyers in the sheikhdoms dosed themselves with opium and hashish smuggled from Iran.[1] Britain, which handled the sheikhdoms’ foreign affairs, answered with a special Dangerous Drugs Regulation filed in London as PRO F0371/114755.[1]
Ten articles and two hospitals
The regulation ran to ten articles.[1] It prohibited selling or supplying any dangerous drug except through two named hospitals — al-Maktum Hospital in Dubai and the American Mission Hospital in Sharjah — or under a licence from the British Political Agent.[1] Imports and exports needed the Agent’s permission, prescriptions required real treatment, and even helping someone commit a drugs offence abroad counted as an offence at home.[1] The banned list named raw opium and its derivatives, coca leaves and their preparations, and Indian hemp with its preparations.[1] Anyone convicted faced up to three years in prison, a fine of 5,000 Indian rupees, or both, plus forfeiture of everything connected with the crime.[1]
The rulers left it on paper
The regulation was never applied by the rulers of the Trucial States, and London never asked them to pass matching ordinances.[1] They preferred to deal with drugs under Islamic law, and the Political Agent was content: both sides considered the British regulation and Islamic law together adequate.[1] In practice the trade went on. Through the 1960s opium, hashish and qat sold openly, above all in Dubai and Sharjah, with opium and hashish the two drugs people actually used.[1] The one punishment the record preserves is personal rather than legal: the Ruler of Sharjah had a dealer punished for bringing opium and hashish from Iran to sell to elderly users who believed the drugs boosted their virility.[1]
Abu Dhabi and Dubai wrote their own laws
The paper ban lasted until oil wealth gave the biggest emirates states of their own to run. In 1970 Abu Dhabi issued the first locally made Dangerous Drugs Act, punishable by up to five years in prison, through the Abu Dhabi drugs act of 1970.[1] Dubai followed with its own law the next year, and the remaining emirates mostly adopted Dubai’s text, through the Dubai drugs law of 1971.[1] That shared prohibition became the foundation the federation built on after December 1971; the United Arab Emirates profile follows the later federal laws.[1]
Score by segment 0 to 10
- Possession · 25%10 → 5−5
- Personal cultivation · 25%10 → 5−5
- Punishment & enforcement · 20%10 → 7−3
- Sharing & gifting · 10%10 → 5−5
- Consumption · 10%10 → 9−1
- Legal access · 10%10 → 9−1
The bar shows the score after the change; the tick marks where it stood before. United Arab Emirates's scores have changed again since.
References
- Drugs Abuse in the United Arab EmiratesHashim Abdullah Sulaiman Sarhan · In PhD thesis, Department of Social Policy, University of Newcastle upon Tyne · 1995 · Chapter 4, pp.108-109; the 1955 regulation, its articles and penalties, non-application by the rulers, the 1960s market, and the 1970-1971 local laws
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read. The score before the change is an editorial estimate.