Originally Posted by stut

I've always wondered about this. I travel with prescription drugs all the time (one of which is a controlled drug). I've always taken the pharmacy-labelled box (which contains full details of the prescription) to be evidence that it is prescribed to me, and so has every customs officer I've presented it to (I've actively done so in countries where it's been ambiguous).

But is this correct? In England, if you have a paper prescription, you give it to the pharmacist and you don't get it back - you may get a slip which allows you to tick for repeats, but that's it. If you have repeats, you usually get them on e-prescription anyway, meaning you don't have a piece of paper to start with.