Chinese authorities announce major update to controlled drug laws

Chinese authorities announce major update to controlled drug laws

About the author
Joe Bradley is a Biochemist with decades of experience in controlled drug regulations, drug discovery and cheminformatics. He has spent the last 12 years working to improve controlled drug and regulatory compliance within the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry, through the development of software solutions which allows the rapid and accurate identification of controlled and regulated chemicals.

He founded Scitegrity in 2011 and the tools he helped create are now used by many of the worlds top chemical and pharmaceutical companies, specialist controlled drug suppliers and regulators.

He has consulted for regulators globally, helping to refine and assess the impact of proposed controlled drug regulations before final enactment.
When not absorbed in chemical regulations you'll find him on is skateboard, trials bike or with snooker cue in hand.

The Chinese Administration of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, the National Medical Products Administration, the Ministry of Public Security, and the National Health Commission have released a new consolidated Catalogue of Medicinal Narcotic Drugs and the Catalogue of Medicinal Psychotropic Substances for 2025. 

This is the first consolidated update to the lists since 2013, however many of the additions and updates have previously been announced by the NMPA (National Medical Products Administration) over the last decade and were already included in Controlled Substances Squared.

Although some reporting on the update describes, hundreds of new or moved substances, the number of new substances are much lower at 5, when you consider the various amendments already taken place since 2013 which added many of the substances .  

However there are still significant changes to the schedules.

At the same time the Ministry of Public Security, together with the National Health Commission and the National Medical Products Administration has adjusted the existing "Catalogue of Narcotic Drugs", "Catalogue of Psychotropic Drugs" and "Supplementary Catalogue of Controlled Non-pharmaceutical Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Drugs" to form the "Catalogue of Non-pharmaceutical Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Drugs". This was last consolidated in 2015, although has also been updated several times via announcements that have been tracked in Controlled Substances Squared.

The latest edition of the includes not only the 231 substances from the original "Supplementary List of Controlled Non-pharmaceutical Narcotic Drugs" (etizolam, previously regulated as a non-pharmaceutical narcotic and psychotropic substance, has been reclassified as a Psychotropic Substances List) but also the three major categories of fentanyl, synthetic cannabinoids and nitazines (generic statements controlling chemical space announced over the last 5 years). 

It also includes 91 substances separated from the 2013 edition of the "List of Narcotic Drugs" and 74 substances separated from the 2013 edition of the "List of Psychotropic Substances" (no longer distinguishing between Category I and Category II psychotropic substances)

These updated have been added into Controlled Substances Squared.

Do you want to be able to easily and automatically check if your chemicals are controlled and regulated around the world - even for novel and propriatory chemicals - then you need Controlled Substances Squared.