Uzbekistan introduces detention for public drug use

From 12 June 2026, using drugs in public became a separate administrative offence in Uzbekistan. Citizens could be fined twenty to forty basic calculation units or detained for up to fifteen days. The same law expanded aggravated supply rules and created a separate offence of running an illegal drug laboratory.^[1]

A presidential programme became legislation

The change followed President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s November 2025 decree. It made protecting young people a priority, approved a national action programme for 2025–2026 and ordered a replacement narcotics bill to be drafted by the end of 2025.^[2]

The decree endorsed proposals for stronger criminal penalties and administrative detention for public drug use. The June law then amended the criminal and administrative codes. It took effect on publication, while its criminal amendments applied to offences committed after commencement.^[1][2]

Public use carried its own penalty

The new offence covered public use of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues and potent substances. It made an exception for medical use on prescription. Alongside the fine for citizens, officials faced forty to sixty basic calculation units; detention could last up to fifteen days, and the items involved were subject to confiscation.^[1]

Uzbekistan already had a separate administrative offence for small personal drug holdings. The original 1995 code allowed a fine or up to fifteen days of detention for those holdings. The 2026 amendment retained that distinction between small personal quantities and criminal possession while adding the separate public-use offence.^[1][3]

Online supply reached a higher band

The revised supply offence set fifteen to twenty years in prison for large quantities and for supply by an organised group across two or more states or using telecommunications or the internet. Other online supply, supply at educational institutions or youth camps, and supply involving a minor fell within the seven-to-ten-year aggravated band.^[1]

Those rules concerned supplying drugs or handling them with intent to supply. The revised code continued to place holdings without that intent in a separate personal-possession offence.^[1]

Laboratories became a separate offence

Organising or maintaining an illegal laboratory for producing, making or processing drugs carried five to ten years. Repeat offending or acting with others by prior agreement raised that to ten to fifteen years. An organised group, or establishing two or more laboratories, faced fifteen to twenty years.^[1]

Together, the amendments added a direct penalty for public users and higher bands for specified supply and production activities. The Uzbekistan profile brings those rules together with the older possession and growing offences.^[1]