Where to find legal medicine information

[LittleLostThing]

I’m travelling to Costa Rica next month and due to my ill health I have an awful lot of medication that I need to take with me. I have prescriptions for all my medicine but also planning on taking a first aid kit with a few over the counter medications (omeprazol, Nytol and co-codamol).

I’ve found lots of information stating that you need prescriptions for all medications taken into Costa Rica and you can’t take more than you’ll need for your stay. But I can’t find anything about specific medicines.

The Laura Plummer case has made me a lot more aware I need to check this stuff before I go (although I’m not taking 500 tramadol tablets without a prescription obviously!). One of my prescribed medications is diazepam and I just can’t find any information anywhere to say whether this is legal or not. If it’s not then it’s not a huge problem, I can probably get GP to prescribe something else.

Any ideas?

Hopeful bump

Contact the embassy in London:
www.costaricanembassy.co.uk

www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/costa-rica/health

Personally I wouldn't travel anywhere with codeine based products without a prescription as it's banned in some countries.

auntiemaggie that’s what I’m trying to find out. I’ll probably just take bog standard paracetamol rather than the co codamol so that’s not too much of an issue. I’m prescribed a fairly hefty dose of diazepam, I have the prescriptions for it and will only take what I need but I can’t find out if it’s actually legal or not.

I emailed the embassy a couple of weeks ago and they just directed me to the uk travel recommendations for Costa Rica and a link to the Costa Rica health department which is all in Spanish. No information on actual legality of specific medications.

Dh is of the opinion that as it’s a massive tourist destination and diazepam is a fairly standard medication there would be more information if it was actually illegal. I’m just a worrier and don’t want to spend my dream holiday in prison.

This may help:-

www.costarica-embassy.org/index.php?q=node/111

also the ISTM database:-
higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/ISTM/062acfe6-1d82-461c-8965-9948543fc637/UploadedImages/ISTM%20database%20on%20International%20regulations%20%20explanation.pdf

scroll down to Costa Rica (no specific restrictions listed)