FFF,
I hear what you say, but the avaerage pax, possibly going outside the EU for the first time, can be forgiven (in my opinion) for not realising that drugs prescribed by his/her local quack could be the cause of getting "banged up"!
Maybe it's the responsibility of the quack to say "it's legal here, but some counties have a different opinion" (does YOUR local doc know the rules world-wide?
)
Maybe it's the responsibility of the airline to warn in advance on ticket sale to countries with "strange" (non-EU) drug rules?
Maybe it's the responsibility of the pax to research the laws (on-line if they have the facility, or even know of the need
)
Whoever's "fault" it was, UAE have, as I said earlier, "shot themselves in the foot" in regards to attracting tourists, and shot EK in regards to transit pax - sadly, as UAE is a great country and EK a great airline - hope they sort it out!