Just cancelled a trip to Abu Dhabi due to medication
Discussion
So on Monday I was due to fly to Dubai then onto Abu Dhabi to attend a conference.
Mentioned it to my GP yesterday who informed me that there was no way I would be able to take my medication with me - I'm on some pretty strong painkillers at the moment.
I took it with a pinch of salt but then had a quick trawl of t'interweb and lo and behold my medication is on a list of banned substances that give you a mandatory 4 year spell in chokey!
Thinking I would leave them at home and just tough it out for two days I then read that the Dubai authorities can test your piss and any trace of Codeine or Morphine is also treated as possession - and 4 years in an Arabian jail.
This is f
king scary stuff - so I've elected to not go and told my boss that I'm probably much more use to him at liberty in Europe than banged up in the Middle East.
Digging a little deeper there are some properly scary stories - guy gets arrested and banged up for having poppy seeds on him from a roll he ate at Heathrow. Some guy gets 4 years for having 0.0003g of hashish on the sole of his shoe.
Some other lady got piss tested and charged with posession of Codeine - which was given to her by a hospital in Dubai.
Mental - how on earth did they let Amy Winehouse into the country to play a gig?
Mentioned it to my GP yesterday who informed me that there was no way I would be able to take my medication with me - I'm on some pretty strong painkillers at the moment.
I took it with a pinch of salt but then had a quick trawl of t'interweb and lo and behold my medication is on a list of banned substances that give you a mandatory 4 year spell in chokey!
Thinking I would leave them at home and just tough it out for two days I then read that the Dubai authorities can test your piss and any trace of Codeine or Morphine is also treated as possession - and 4 years in an Arabian jail.
This is f
king scary stuff - so I've elected to not go and told my boss that I'm probably much more use to him at liberty in Europe than banged up in the Middle East.Digging a little deeper there are some properly scary stories - guy gets arrested and banged up for having poppy seeds on him from a roll he ate at Heathrow. Some guy gets 4 years for having 0.0003g of hashish on the sole of his shoe.
Some other lady got piss tested and charged with posession of Codeine - which was given to her by a hospital in Dubai.
Mental - how on earth did they let Amy Winehouse into the country to play a gig?
Mr Gearchange said:
So on Monday I was due to fly to Dubai then onto Abu Dhabi to attend a conference.
Mentioned it to my GP yesterday who informed me that there was no way I would be able to take my medication with me - I'm on some pretty strong painkillers at the moment.
I took it with a pinch of salt but then had a quick trawl of t'interweb and lo and behold my medication is on a list of banned substances that give you a mandatory 4 year spell in chokey!
Thinking I would leave them at home and just tough it out for two days I then read that the Dubai authorities can test your piss and any trace of Codeine or Morphine is also treated as possession - and 4 years in an Arabian jail.
This is fking scary stuff - so I've elected to not go and told my boss that I'm probably much more use to him at liberty in Europe than banged up in the Middle East.
Digging a little deeper there are some properly scary stories - guy gets arrested and banged up for having poppy seeds on him from a roll he ate at Heathrow. Some guy gets 4 years for having 0.0003g of hashish on the sole of his shoe.
Some other lady got piss tested and charged with posession of Codeine - which was given to her by a hospital in Dubai.
Mental - how on earth did they let Amy Winehouse into the country to play a gig?
Does anyone have any evidence of those popular rumor stories that float around? Why would they want to look at the bottom of your shoes in Dubai Airport? Or test your piss? If the stories are true, then they would have to have been marked or have done something wrong to be taken by customs or immigration for something or other surely?Mentioned it to my GP yesterday who informed me that there was no way I would be able to take my medication with me - I'm on some pretty strong painkillers at the moment.
I took it with a pinch of salt but then had a quick trawl of t'interweb and lo and behold my medication is on a list of banned substances that give you a mandatory 4 year spell in chokey!
Thinking I would leave them at home and just tough it out for two days I then read that the Dubai authorities can test your piss and any trace of Codeine or Morphine is also treated as possession - and 4 years in an Arabian jail.
This is f
king scary stuff - so I've elected to not go and told my boss that I'm probably much more use to him at liberty in Europe than banged up in the Middle East.Digging a little deeper there are some properly scary stories - guy gets arrested and banged up for having poppy seeds on him from a roll he ate at Heathrow. Some guy gets 4 years for having 0.0003g of hashish on the sole of his shoe.
Some other lady got piss tested and charged with posession of Codeine - which was given to her by a hospital in Dubai.
Mental - how on earth did they let Amy Winehouse into the country to play a gig?
I've gone through Dubai airport nmaybe 20 times now, never had any reason to stop me and never really seen anyone being stopped apart from the x-ray scanners for luggage just before the final slide doors in customs when you have too much luggage.
To be honest, I would not have had much of an issue coming over if you could have swapped your painkiller medication for a week or so. And I'm really cautious about things like this.
S1MMA said:
Does anyone have any evidence of those popular rumor stories that float around? Why would they want to look at the bottom of your shoes in Dubai Airport? Or test your piss? If the stories are true, then they would have to have been marked or have done something wrong to be taken by customs or immigration for something or other surely?
.
I don't know the absolulte veracity of all of the stories but this was enough to put me off taking the risk:.
http://www.dubaifaqs.com/drugs-dubai.php
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counti...
Switching medication isn't really an option - all the advice seems to be take NOTHING with you - even if you have a prescription - and if they tested my urine I'd be screwed anyway - what with it having both Morphine and Codeine in it.
I thought you could bring meds in if accompanied by a letter/prescription from your GP?
Work colleagues get stopped occasionally coming through the airport. One guy (our company lawyer) had been to and fro between dxb and africa which saw him being flagged on their system. They were very thorough and detained him when they found a single white crystal in his bag. This turned out to be silica and the customs supervisor was embarrased that his guys hadn't realised this.
As with most things here it seems, the authorities need good reason/suspicion to stop and search. In the main, I've found them much more relaxed than uk when it comes to things like hand luggae liquids etc.
Work colleagues get stopped occasionally coming through the airport. One guy (our company lawyer) had been to and fro between dxb and africa which saw him being flagged on their system. They were very thorough and detained him when they found a single white crystal in his bag. This turned out to be silica and the customs supervisor was embarrased that his guys hadn't realised this.
As with most things here it seems, the authorities need good reason/suspicion to stop and search. In the main, I've found them much more relaxed than uk when it comes to things like hand luggae liquids etc.
There are always scare stories, but just cover yourself by following the rules. My other half takes both those drugs in various pills. We travel to the UAE and Oman regularly. We have a doctor's letter explaining the medication is prescribed. Never had so much as a sniff on entry anyhow, I have passed some dodgy looking baggage through the immigration scanner at Muscat and they've not even looked (including more than my booze allowance). UAE is 'famous' for the poppy seed incident - how many similar incidents have you heard of since then?
Note: Remember, if you get cancer or something nasty in the UAE they will probably give you these drugs.
Note: Remember, if you get cancer or something nasty in the UAE they will probably give you these drugs.
Mr Gearchange said:
S1MMA said:
Does anyone have any evidence of those popular rumor stories that float around? Why would they want to look at the bottom of your shoes in Dubai Airport? Or test your piss? If the stories are true, then they would have to have been marked or have done something wrong to be taken by customs or immigration for something or other surely?
.
I don't know the absolulte veracity of all of the stories but this was enough to put me off taking the risk:.
http://www.dubaifaqs.com/drugs-dubai.php
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counti...
Switching medication isn't really an option - all the advice seems to be take NOTHING with you - even if you have a prescription - and if they tested my urine I'd be screwed anyway - what with it having both Morphine and Codeine in it.
A colleague is on valium with prescription, he brought about 6mths supply with him from oz last month with no issues.
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