Common drugs can cause travelers pain
The bottle of Viagra that Rush Limbaugh carried into this country last week landed the radio star in legal limbo and late night comedians’ punch lines. It also points out how any drugs — even the most common — can become prescriptions for trouble when traveling.
One-third of the 2,500 Americans arrested overseas each year are held on drug-related charges, according to the U.S. State Department. Not following the letter of the law also can be a problem coming home.
Limbaugh was detained and his drugs seized as he came through Palm Beach International Airport on June 26 for having a prescription in his doctor’s name. The State’s Attorney Office in Palm Beach is still investigating.
Travelers should check the laws of each country before they check in their luggage. Something as innocuous as putting pills into a dispenser with compartments marked with the days of the week — rather than the original container — can alert customs officials.
“That would be ever so much easier to carry,” said Karen Hale, 65, of Ormond by-the-Sea, about those seven-days-in-one dispensers. She attributed problem-free travels to China, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, Ireland, England, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and the Amazon Basin to her prescription-stashing approach.
“I’m always very careful to keep them in the container they came in,” she said.
Travelers going someplace exotic, be warned. Chewing gum and chewing tobacco, for example, are not allowed into Singapore, according to that government’s Web site. Japanese customs officials will get riled up at those coming into the country with stimulants found in sinus medications such as Sudafed and Vicks inhalers. And morphine, codeine and benzodiazepines — not uncommon prescriptions in the United States — are not allowed into France, according to the French embassy.
For a smooth return, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has these general recommendations:
· Carry only the quantity of substance that a person with the condition (such as chronic pain) would normally carry for personal use.
· Carry a prescription or written statement from your physician that the substances are being used under a doctor’s supervision.
· Medicines brought into the United States without a U.S. doctor’s prescription — to take advantage of lower drug prices outside this country — are limited to personal use and 50 dosage units.
· Only medications legal in the United States can be brought into the country for personal use.
Zachary Mann, a special agent for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said 25,000 people arrive in Miami from foreign destinations every day — making it the third busiest in the country. Drug seizures are not uncommon there, Mann said.
If you are traveling with someone else’s drugs in your possession, you’d better have a story, Mann said.
“If it’s a husband and wife or family situation, it wouldn’t be an issue unless it’s an excessive quantity,” Mann said, addressing the question of the name on the prescription.
Pam Harvey, a Daytona Beach Shores retiree who just returned from Tuscany, Italy, said she and her husband have had more trouble with wine importation than drug issues.
“My wine just arrived after being impounded by customs,” she said.
Randy Margrave, a pharmacist at Holly Hill Pharmacy, said he thinks Limbaugh’s prescription troubles are a result of the political shock-jock’s high profile. He said the U.S. laws on drug importation can be open to interpretation.
“What’s a 90-day supply of Viagra?” Margrave joked, referring to one way of describing how many medications people are allowed to bring into the country without a prescription. “For Rush Limbaugh, that could be one pill.”