Two Britons visiting Dubai have each been jailed for four years for possessing tiny amounts of soft drugs for personal use.

The harsh sentences highlight the zero-tolerance policy to all drugs enforced by the authorities in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven Gulf states. A mere speck of a drug forgotten in a trouser pocket can bring a four-year jail term.

One of the Britons, aged 22 and identified only by his initials, PP, was arrested at Dubai airport on June 7 when 0.11 grams (0.04oz) of hashish were found in his bag, according to local media reports. The amount would barely be enough to make one joint.

The other Briton, aged 27 and identified as HV, was arrested on June 22 at the same airport after arriving on a flight from Afghanistan. He was found with 1.18 grams of hashish.

“They are receiving consular assistance,” a spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.

Prison conditions are described by former inmates as spartan at best. Prisoners receive three meals a day, are able to exercise and have access to reading materials. Conditions are clean but accommodation can be cramped, with six to a room.

A million British tourists a year visit Dubai, which has become the region’s tourism, property, finance and high-tech trading hub. Another 100,000 British nationals are resident in the emirate, which appears to be a haven of liberalism in the Middle East.

But expatriate Britons are well aware that drugs are one perceived Western social ill that the UAE authorities will not tolerate, even if others – such as prostitution – have taken root. Four years’ imprisonment is a common sentence for drugs possession, and trafficking carries the death penalty.

British visitors to the UAE appear less well informed of the perils of carrying even microscopic amounts of soft drugs. Travel advice on the Foreign Office website makes quite clear that there are severe penalties for those who flout the UAE’s drug laws. Since January last year possession of even trace amounts of illegal drugs has resulted in four-year jail terms for foreigners in transit through Dubai.

“The presence of drugs in the body is counted as possession,” the Foreign Office cautions. In other words, travel-lers can be jailed even if they have no drugs on them: a trace in the blood-stream of a drug consumed before entering the UAE is enough to secure a jail term.

Such was the fate of an 18-year-old Egyptian boy who smoked a cigarette containing hashish a day before he flew to the UAE this year. Traces of the drug were found in his blood and he was jailed in April by a court in the emirate of Fujairah for four years.

Those who dabble with recreational drugs are also advised to ensure that no particles are left on their clothes or luggage before travelling. A British man aged 25 was jailed for four years in June for possession of 0.07 grams of marijuana – a little over two-thou-sandths of an ounce – which was found in his trouser pocket, local press reports said. Also in his pocket were what a newspaper termed “two hardly noticeable slivers of hashish”.

The man, identified as WH, confessed to possessing the tiny amounts of drugs, but denied that he had intended to use them. “I mistakenly forgot them in my pockets,” he said.

Painkillers that are available with a doctor’s prescription or are even available over the counter in Europe or the United States can be illegal in Dubai.

The US State Department lists these types of medicines – mainly those containing codeine and similar narcotic-like ingredients – on its website about Dubai, and advises Americans not to bring in such pills without a doctor’s prescription.

The emirate’s penal code is based both on Islamic Sharia and British civil law.

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