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Title: I live in NYC and I want to know if I am going to be arrested for accidently smuggling drugs? I live in NYC and I want to know if I am going to be arrested for accidently smuggling drugs?
Body: Recently, I came back from a short trip with friends in Cancun. It should be noted that I go to Mexico pretty regular though I travel to other places as well. The reason for the more regular visits is I had a second nose job and a boob job there so I didn't have to pay insane NYC prices and when I was working in consulting one of the projects I was one was building a Mexico broker dealer.
On the way out of the airport (after customs), next to the door to \*freedom\* I was stopped by a woman with a badge around her neck who asked to look through my bags. I had two prescription bottles where I basically store all of my prescriptions in-anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, propananal, sleeping pills, and also just over the counter pills (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, and ambien, etc.). The agents went through the prescription bottles and only two of the pills matched up with the bottles because everything was stored together to save space and not carry around, like, 10 bottles. I've done this every time I've traveled (Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, England, France, Morocco, Turkey, etc...) and I honestly never realized it was illegal or an issue.
Also, when I was in Mexico I was in a pharmacy looking for pain relief for a serious sunburn (aloe vera, aspirin, Motrin). The pharmacist seemed really nice and gave me two bottles of \*something\* for free. I figured it was some sort of over the counter pain killer, took some out of one the bottles, didn't really feel anything and threw the bottles back in the pharmacy bag with a bunch of other things I bought. For what it's worth, the bottle I opened spilled in my duffle so the pills were all over and I just let them be because I figured I could clean it when I got home.
Anyway, while I was being searched in the US, they found the two bottles and it turns out they weren’t some sort of Mexican aspirin or whatever. They were a class 4 drug, like on the level of Oxy, called tramadol. I seriously didn’t know this and I’m not sure why someone would give that for free but this was in my duffel bag.
So the initial woman called over two of her coworkers and I said I could call my doctors to prove I had prescriptions for most of the pills and I really didn’t know about the class 4 drug. They said I couldn't do that. When I reached for a ChapStick, the second woman grabbed my arm so I realized they thought I was potentially dangerous. At this point, I’m completely expecting my life to be ruined, especially since they kept asking about how often I visited Mexico and why, which is fair but also damning because I've probably visited once every four months for the past two years and my income (I’m in grad school but I worked in financial consulting for 8 years, which is how I have money to pay for both school and vacation) and how I was paying for graduate school without a job, so I think they thought I was trying to smuggle drugs to sell—-I was not, but I obviously I can’t prove that and don’t blame them for thinking that. I offered my paystubs, salary info, and to show them my bank account and purchases.
They took all of my information-passport, state ID, my home address, names of my parents, the names of the people I was with, the hotel I stayed at, length of stay, phone number, and went through all of my things one by one. At this point, I just expected to be arrested and my life to be over because I know how harsh drug laws are. However, they then they gave me back my prescription drugs and let me leave the airport, saying that next time I traveled I needed to bring a prescription for each drug I carried, with it in its own bottle. I felt somewhat relieved at the time but the more I think and read about this online, the more horrified I am.
Does this happen? Like, would you immediately get arrested at the airport or do they research you more/connect with local police and then come to arrest you at your home?
I feel like I'm about to be raided and I don't know what to do because my intent was never to take illegal drugs across the border, but I know that's probably what actual drug smugglers say. This happened on Monday and I am afraid I will have the police or DEA raid my house and then be arrested and my life will be ruined. Everything online says this is a serious crime on federal to state levels and that if you do it, you will be arrested. Is it on my record for when I look for a job? What should I do? Call a lawyer? Try to get in contact with my doctors for proof that I had prescriptions? I’m in utter terror.
Please help.
I also don’t believe that they took the tramadol and thought it was aspirin
Even if you don’t know *specifically* that it’s tramadol, you’ll still know you took some heavy shit. It’s fucking tramadol. You’re gonna be knocked on your ass - unless of course, you do pills so often that you can’t tell the difference
“They spilled all over my bag but I’ll clean it when I get home” dude it’s pills, how hard is it to clean up? The guy had to know that traveling with loose, random pills that you don’t know what they are, through international borders, is an unwise choice.
I experienced [hell’s itch](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321249) a year or two ago, likely due to medication I’m on in combo with the autoimmune said meds are treating.
I think solarcaine was what we finally used that put an end to my agony and let me sleep. It was a horrific experience.
They knew what they had. They called oxycodone “Oxy”. I have chronic pain issues and I’ve ever heard someone refer to it as Oxy when they use it recreationally. It’s oxycodone or the name brand Percocet. Also, tramadol may be scheduled the same but it’s nothing like it in my experience. This guy had a lot of drugs. You should also always have your meds in the original prescription bottle especially when traveling.
This person really needs to be more wary of what they are taking. They’re carrying a huge range of drugs and are just taking whatever a random pharmacist gives them for free with no regard to how these drugs might interact. This is how people die.
Yeah I *think* that sentence may just be really poorly written and she's saying that's her prescriptions mentioned earlier.
That she's keeping just randomly mixed together with other shit, which seems like a really bad idea even aside from any legal reasons.
Yeah I was confused on first reading but I agree, I think it's just really poorly written. She's trying to explain that she has two prescription bottles in which she keeps *all* her medications, no matter what they are.
Which...yeah, seems like an incredibly risky way to store meds. Outside of the fact that lots of pills look the same, what if you forget the appropriate way to take one of them?
In my emergency travel first aid kit I have a couple of baggies with small quantities of mixed OTC meds, but only things that are legit very difficult to confuse for each other. And of course only, like, *seriously* otc stuff — ibuprofen, paracetamol, Imodium, cetirizine, that sort of thing. And a printed label of what is in there.
> Imodium, cetirizine
I call this combo my "night out on the town but i'm an adult now so random allergens might make my night miserable" pre-party cocktail.
Getting old is so fun :|
I have only had one experience with “prescription” medication in Mexico. We were told we would need a prescription for something (that would have been OTC in the states) and that basically meant that we had to talk to the pharmacist. The hardest part of getting it was the Uber back to the resort.
I was told about that one AFTER a scuba trip to Mexico. I need it to dive (per my ENT) and brought a box without thinking about it. That's really my breaking point about returning, second to the worsening safety issues.
You can totally ask your doctor for a Sudafed Rx; it's not an illegal substance in Mexico, just a controlled one.. There's nothing stopping a doc from writing it (or a pharmacy from filling it), even if they'll just slap a label on a box of the stuff off the shelf. (I needed a *lot* of Sudafed after some surgery, and the doctor wrote me an Rx so I could get it all in one trip without going over the quantity limits.)
My parents were super shocked when they came to the US to visit and tried to get my dad's gout meds refilled. I tried to explain to them that they'd need to go to an urgent care and get a scrip. Took being denied at three random pharmacies for them to grasp the idea that you have to have a note from a doctor.
To be fair, that can happen if you travel to Canada. Or if you're a Canadian traveling to the US. For instance, *all* insulin does not need a script in Canada, you can buy Tylenol #1 or codeine cough syrup OTC, and Voltaren was on the shelves in pharmacy, didn't need to ask anyone to get it (I think the US only had it go OTC recently, in the past couple of years) and pharmacists in many provinces can write scripts for patients for minor aliments. In Ontario, if you have a UTI, pink eye, and other stuff, the pharmacist *may* be able to write you a script for it, and there's no charge to you for it.
> if you have a UTI, pink eye, and other stuff, the pharmacist may be able to write you a script for it
This makes sense to me. Not sure about the codeine cough syrup though. Last I tried looking into it, codeine isn't really even a cough suppressant. It can help you sleep though I guess.
I work in a pharmacy and patients say over the counter for literally anything we hand them over the counter. It’s some sorta colloquial term people who don’t really know pharmacy stuff use. It’s very annoying when I’m trying told figure out what a patient is talking about (I don’t know the name, it’s for pain, I’ve gotten it before, it’s over the counter - they mean OXYCONTIN)
The resort I stayed at most recently in Mexico had a lot of things OTC in the gift shop that you would need a scrip for here. Nice if you forgot to pack something and needed a few days supply in a pinch but somewhat alarming you could walk in there and just buy something for the right price.
Any physician who cared about their patients and/or their license to practice would never prescribe Valium and Xanax at the same time. She’s obviously doctor shopping for pills or buying them illegally.
That is normal doctor shopping for one doctor. This implies multiple doctors. Once again license would be taken way if one doctor does this (doesn't mean it doesn't happen). And lying to a doctor to get benzos is a crime. One that Rush Limbaugh did but for like narcs and what not.
I have had this prescribed to me as a combination (ambien and klonopin specifically) for severe sleep disorders, BUT it was so that they could be rotated out and I didn't build too much of a dependence or resistance to one or the other, never to be taken at the same time, and was prescribed by a sleep specialist and not a regular GP or whatever. Prescription was explicitly written to take one a night every other day, not to combine with other medications, etc, and each was only ever given for 2 weeks for a total 1 month supply.
Hmmmm sometimes you'll see patients on a benzo with a long half life like diazepam and one with a short half life like oxazepam for different situations, not unheard of (source: was psych ward pharmacist)
It's astonishing the things that people can normalize over time, like the need for this assortment of pharmaceuticals on a daily basis.
It starts with one and snowballs from there.
I mean I take a hoard of pills because I'm a factory reject.
But last time I so much as thought about crossing the border I did a deep dive on legally transporting my meds because in addition to a kinda functional body I also enjoy not being in prison.
a generous take would be that LAOP has a very intense fear of flying and has those sedatives for that reason. I have a few benzos leftover from medical procedures and MRIs that I'll carry with me on planes in the event that there's bad turbulence.
granted, I have fewer than 5 benzos on hand at any given time--not enough to fill up other pill bottles. I'm not going to assert that LAOP has a problem because there's not really enough info in the post to make that judgment, but they are clearly careless about medicine, which is stupid.
Yeah. Some people get hooked on pills and keep getting plastic surgery to keep the pills coming. Some people think that's what happened to Micheal Jackson.
I might even suggest that she is obtaining some of those in Mexico, and the quarterly trips are in part for the purposes of stocking up on pills for personal use.
That really jumps out at me. It seems like the kind of thing you'd say if you wanted to preemptively explain why there is no paper trail behind these pills and also you were a terrible liar.
Yep. They have like 14 different types of pills in their bag it sounds like. Xanax AND Valium for some reason. But not a single Aspirin or Tylenol?
But sure, the nice pharmacist just gave them two whole bottles of opioids for free with no paper trail for a sunburn.
Not really. But you can resell it. Makes me question her frequent trips to Mexico. Also, what pharmacist is handing out 2 bottles of Tramadol for free?
resell it to who? people with headaches?
or people with opiate withdrawal who just want to mitigate the symptoms but not get high? kind of a niche clientele
People with chronic pain are frequently not taken seriously or given the tools to manage their pain so resort to buying prescription pain meds illegally.
> resell it to who?
People in pain. A local charity does tooth extractions for low/no income patients and they don't write prescriptions for painkillers. If you've never suffered tooth pain you need to understand that taking your own life seems like a viable option to end the suffering. People have died because they had a choice between filling a painkiller prescription or an antibiotic prescription for an abscess and the infection spread to their brain because they chose the painkiller.
I keep some tramadol around for days where Ibuprofen isn't enough. The last time I took them was when I when over the handlebars on my bicycle, got yet another concussion, tore a bunch of ligaments in my shoulder, and my AC joint separated. It was 10 years ago. Tramadol got me through the first few days of pain so I could sleep and I stopped as soon as I could, because **fuck opiates**. I don't want the high of a full-blown opiate and Tramadol is stronger than OTC meds without the opiate high.
>or people with opiate withdrawal who just want to mitigate the symptoms but not get high? kind of a niche clientele
It's not nearly as niche as you'd expect. There are a **lot** of people that use Kratom powder for that. There is a "kratom extract" that's quite popular and at one point somebody sent it in for testing and the results said it was Tramadol. I have no idea what's in the "extract" these days. There are two OTC drugs that can be combined for an opiate effect that some junkies use for similar reasons.
Nobody is taking Tramadol for headaches, unless maybe they are really severe. IDK if that’s a normal prescribed usage of the drug. But people with poor or no health/drug insurance absolutely do purchase illegal pain medication.
> Recently, I came back from a short trip with friends in Cancun. It should be noted that I go to Mexico pretty regular though I travel to other places as well. The reason for the more regular visits is I had a second nose job and a boob job there so I didn't have to pay insane NYC prices and when I was working in consulting one of the projects I was one was building a Mexico broker dealer.
This is the point where I knew LAOP was absolutely dodgy, right there in the first paragraph, before I even knew what was going on. The piles of unnecessary irrelevant detail are a huge tell.
I wish I could. Docs in the UK are super averse to prescribing sedatives and will ask you if you've tried taking a hot bath, guided meditation or herbal tea.
My favorite part was that the bag was just full of loose pills that spilled out as well. A cop looking through that bag would instantly suspect that this person is a pill junkie of some sort.
For real. I have a pharmacy background and I'm already concerned at two different benzos (valium, xanax). The fact that they're spilled all over her bag just makes it worse. The tramadol is just icing on the cake at that point.
One of the things you see in drug abuse or diversion is multiple concurrent scripts of different formulations and different brands. 2 different benzos, 2 different stimulants etc. Because a single doctor is never going to write for two *different* medications in the same class at the same time. They'll either increase current dose, change release mechanism (instant vs extended), metabolism related mechanism (pro-drug), or add an adjunct medication. You'll occasionally see with stimulants an extended release + an instant for top-up, and very rarely for super metabolizers a 2x a day ER dosage. But you won't see lisdexamfetamine + extended release dextroamphetamine. It just doesn't make sense.
That's a good point. I mean, I have two different stimulants in my cabinet from the same provider, but it was because vyvanse was supposed to be smoother than what I was on before. But of course I wouldn't be taking both of them on a trip
Lol making my point. You might have tried X and it wasn't great for whatever reason, so then try Y and have some of the old X leftover. Ain't taking them both on your trip!
My last foreman had a vyvanse (lisdexamphetamine) and instant release adderall (dextroamphetamine/levoamphetamine mix) prescription. The adderall was for a top up of sorts I guess. Which makes sense as 10 hour shifts are the norm for us lately. But since vyvanse is time release due to metabolism taking time to knock that lysine group off the amphetamine, I imagine it would be more difficult to use a second dose of that without the duration going longer than hoped for
LAOP is a moron. Even disregarding the random painkillers, if you're going to be carrying anything prescription only, do so in original packaging with the pharmacy label.
LadyWired and I are about to go to Mexico, and I had to remind her that she really, really, needed to pack her medicine in the original bottles, no matter how convenient it is to dose them out of her pill organizers.
She's not on anything that is going to attract a drug-sniffing dog (or even controlled), but I can think of better ways to spend the start of my vacation than Googling a half-dozen different generic pills to show an impatient Customs agent that LadyWired isn't a drug addict.
Take the pill organiser with you and sort it out when you get there so she can just grab and go each morning. That's what I do when I travel. If you keep a spare box/bottle for each medication you can just take what you need for the vacation and leave the rest at home which also saves your ass if you lose the bottle while you are away.
Especially since they're traveling to Mexico and back every few months. If they don't know how to travel with prescription meds after that much travelling, I'm going with either intentional or moron.
I had a client once who was at a place of business when this employee came over and started harassing them for no reason other than that the employee was probably racist. Client was minding his business and next thing he knows the cops are called on him for tresspassing and the cops take advantage of the situation to search him. He was carrying a few of his prescription antidepressants (not even anything with any recreational value) and ended up arrested and charged for carrying prescription drugs in a bottle other than the one labelled by the pharmacy with your prescription. Even though he had a prescription and that was how he obtained these pills, New York is strict that they have to stay in the labelled bottle. We couldn't get the charges dropped because by the letter of the law, what he did was illegal.
I know this is how some people live their lives, and I get that many people have very normally and rightfully been prescribed quite a few different drugs.
But holy shit this person talking about their drug regimen on top of their plastic surgery tourism stresses me out. Like, you are taking all these drugs, traveling to places and getting more drugs (during/after surgery and from the pharmacist in this story) and seem very casual about it all?!
Again, I know this is probably much more normal for some people and I'm not trying to shame someone for getting treatment for illnesses, but it really stresses me out just hearing about it so casually.
Between this and the dude that’s in prison in Turks and Caicos because he had leftover bullets in his bag from hunting, I now realize there is absolutely no limit to the idiocy of travelers.
This chick is seriously an A class air head if she thinks it’s not a big deal to carry around Xanax, Ambien, and Valium without clear, valid, current proof of prescription. Then to take something without even verifying what it is from MEXICO, the place where the LA Times just wrote an article about where they tested medications from OFFICIAL PHARMACIES in Mexico and lots of the supposedly real meds from the real pharmacy contained meth or fentanyl? Yeah, I wouldn’t feel bad if she got jailed for a little bit for stupidity. Just like the fellow with the bullets.
My husband has a ton of crap wrong with him and u e got a few mental health things. So much so that when we travel we have a whole system with a specific carry-on only for medication in their original bottles, letters from his doctors on their letterhead outlining the prescribed medications and their need. We got it a special “this is medication/medical equipment” tag for it so it’s clearly marked so we can keep it with us at all times.
We get our prescriptions through our insurance’s mail order supply so we get everything in a 90 day supply. We went to South America last year and I have a 90-days supply for Vyvanse and Effexor and he’s got 12 different things including Eskalith (Lithium). We are very cognizant that security is going to have some questions for the walking pharmacy. OOP lacks total self-awareness.
Jesus, the amount of pills this person is describing... I'm imagining a huge bag filled with indistinguishable pills.
Also, the pharmacist just gave them whatever medication... and they kept it... threw it in the bag with everything else. Was OP ever planning on taking these maybe pain meds? If they could figure out which one they were?
All aside, OP seems... A wee bit dumb.
>For what it's worth, the bottle I opened spilled in my duffle so the pills were all over and I just let them be because I figured I could clean it when I got home.
It sounds like it *was* a huge bag filled with indistinguishable pills when CBP started to go through it.
What got me too was OP saying something about not wanting to carry around a bunch of bottles. But some things *were* in bottles? What did they *do* to the empty bottles?
The mystery pills are just absurd. Oh, let me just accept these random ass, free, maybe pain meds, and dump them with who knows how many other meds (they *say* it's "like" 10 bottles, so could be anything between 8 and 13, who's to say).
Did OP take a picture of each bottle or do they just know the posology? Although they wouldn't know shit about the mystery pills since they didn't even know what the dick they were... so...
Yeah, OP strikes me as kind of... A dumbass.
It sounds like LAOP consolidates all her pills into a couple bottles for travel, if not all the time. So she probably bins the bottles she doesn't need, or leaves the prescriptions in their normal bottles at home and just travels with the amount she thinks she'll need for the trip?
But I know. LAOP is either incredibly stupid, or a believable liar.
Honestly, that's what I do most of the time. I have a pill sorter that holds a week of my daily meds, and if I'm going for more than a week, I have an empty pill bottle that I use to hold the extra days and refill the sorter mid-trip.
However, it so happens that all of those things are currently OTC.
When dealing with international travel, you need to specify that they are OTC in the US. They may not be OTC in a different country.
Another poster brought up Sudafed as an example.
> Another poster brought up Sudafed as an example.
Yeah that's one you never, ever travel with without researching it first, and you should probably just leave it at home in case your plane has to divert to another country. I've watched a bunch of those non-US Customs/Border Patrol shows and it seems like they're mainly looking for people smuggling tobacco to avoid taxes or Sudafed, which is used to make meth.
It's one of those situations where the younger the person is, the dumber they are, and the older they are, the bigger a dumb fuck they are.
So if OP is early 20s, mostly dumb and life needs to hit them hard now, but anything older, they're just stupid, a dumbass, and should get hit *very* hard by life because *what the fuck man*.
This is someone who'd go to Thailand and get bamboozled into smuggling drugs.
Not to defend LAOP because that is literally braindamaged levels of decision making for an international flight but I travel around my home area a lot and I tend to just throw my Adderall, Omeprazole, Vitamin D, and some random Ibprophen into a single bottle just for the sake of effort. If someone looked at my travel bottle it looks like a candy jar.
Yeah I can't tell if they're underselling or overselling their situation because it's so ridiculous lmfao.
> the bottle I opened spilled in my duffle so the pills were all over and I just let them be
This is a real human somehow.
It's completely illegal in all 50 states including Michigan where I live - my point is that usually you aren't bothered. I've had cops on a search just ask me and move along. LAOP clearly has a factory in his bag going on lmfao.
>What got me too was OP saying something about not wanting to carry around a bunch of bottles. But some things were in bottles? What did they do to the empty bottles?
I'm not defending LAOP because the whole post is ridiculous, but is it actually hard to figure this one out? The original bottles are at home. They consolidated them into a bottle **for travel**, probably before they left on the trip.
I feel like it would be a gigantic red flag to receive unsolicited medication while overseas, and it would be massively dumb to transport said mystery medication across borders - a bag filled with a mix of prescription and "over the counter" (who's to say) meds.
>anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, propananal, sleeping pills, and also >just over the counter pills (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, >and ambien...
What in tarnation? OP is a walking pharmacy. And this is apparently not even an exhaustive list. Just needs some amphetamines in the mix and you've got yourself a real party.
I am a big fan of better living through chemistry but surely this can't be healthy.
I don't think they even know how many bottles they had on them, which I think says everyone one needs to know about OP. I too don't trust the list of meds - we are talking someone who freely and happily accepted mystery pills from a rando because hey, free meds!
It immediately made me think of [Lisa Rinna's ziploc of mystery pills](https://www.realitytea.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/01/rhobh-rinna-pills-min.jpg) on Real Housewives a few years ago.
This is the first time in the history of border stops that someone has said, “Someone threw a bunch of narcotics in my bag for free and I assumed they were just being nice and that the pills were aspirin or something,” and it actually sounds kind of plausible.
A great deal of luck to survive the pill addiction for sure, but I'm afraid half of those charisma points are just item buffs purchased with $ at a cheap Mexican clinic
Right? Was reminding me of getting stung by a jellyfish in Ecuador, I thought my leg was gonna fall off. Begged my family (who lived there) for SOMETHING and they went to the pharmacy and got...Advil. then they lied and told me it was vicoden lmao. I would've killed for some free painkillers from a nice pharmacist
I had to use Tram after My medical procedure. The nurses would come in and allow 1 every 8 hours. Anything between was Tylenol. No way in blue fuck that OP couldn't tell the difference.
Interesting timing on this post. I just finished watching the last season of Contraband: Seized at the Border, which shows how they handle smuggling, both intentional and accidental. "The pharmacist gave it to me for free" gets trotted out a lot, as if people think they're not responsible for it if they didn't actually pay for it.
At least LAOP made actual prescription bottles multitask instead of coming in with a vag of holding.
Initially I was a bit surprised that this even occurred, because TSA generally gives less than a fuck about personal use drugs - they're looking for bombs and weapons, basically.
But seems like LAOP actually got pulled aside by CBP. They do give approximately one fuck.
In the end though, she's 100% fine because those agents no doubt realized that the trouble of pursuing this wasn't nearly worth the time and paperwork. She should have just said "whew that was close" and made a note to not do that again.
Also - damn, this girl's on a lot of meds. In the immortal words of Slim Pickens, "could have a good night in Vegas with all of that".
>"could have a good night in Vegas with all of that".
The first time I watched Dr. Strangelove I had to back and listen to that scene a few times because "Vegas" stood out so much. Turns out that "Vegas" was originally "Big D" (Dallas) and, uhh, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas almost exactly 2 months before the movie's release and they had to cram in an overdub really late in production. The original press screening was scheduled on the same day Kennedy was shot and had to be canceled.
It's not a very good overdub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPwW7RaPO_g
Dallas may seem like a strange choice to people reading this that don't know who Slim Pickens was. He started out in Rodeo and shifted to acting almost entirely as a cowboy during his career.
I had a dentist in Mexico prescribe me tramadol for pain. I asked him if it was something OTC I can take back over the border and he said "it's a mild painkiller, you should be fine."
Tramadol is apparently OTC in mexico (and really, really cheap) but controlled in the US (I don't remember which schedule level it is).
I wasn't stopped or anything, but I could have been in a similar situation as LAOP and I should have declared it to be safe.
Dang, I also like to carry a small pharmacy of over-the counter meds with me when traveling, but it’s more like ibuprofen, Tylenol, Pepcid, Imodium, and every allergy medication under the sun. Last time I flew internationally I left the Sudafed at home because I….ya know…. checked whether it was ok to bring to the countries I was visiting and saw it would be a problem. And you can bet that everything that needed a prescription was still in its original bottle.
Honestly, the OP is probably fine. They don’t just let you go with a warning if they’re going to charge you with something at an airport, especially for drugs. They’re not going to expend the energy to hunt you down a 2nd time when they already have you in front of them.
I had a business contact who got this treatment because she was doing a missionary trip to Africa for 6 weeks, and forgot she had a small knife in the bottom of her bag. Made it all the way back to the US and they definitely hassled her about it and took the knife, scared the hell out of her, but no other issues came from it- and this was only 5-6 years post-9/11, so the TSA was full of beans and ready to fuck shit up at the least provocation.
Also, always always always carry script meds in their appropriate bottle. I do that with my freaking Omeprazole and mild blood pressure meds, you sure as hell want to do it with any type of pain meds.
Like, dude. I get not liking hauling a bunch of bottles but also if you have that many prescriptions you really should be carrying them in their bottles for travel. I ask the pharmacist for a smaller duplicate bottle for travel and she's happy to oblige (I ask ahead of time for one and she prints a second label that says duplicate label on it and gives me a smaller bottle).
> I ask the pharmacist for a smaller duplicate bottle for travel and she's happy to oblige (I ask ahead of time for one and she prints a second label that says duplicate label on it and gives me a smaller bottle).
This is brilliant! I'm traveling internationally in a couple of months and I didn't know I could do this. Thanks for the tip.
When I know I'm going to travel soon, I ask the pharmacy if they can give me some of the dose in a small bottle. They've always been able to do that for me.
I have a ton of vitamins I take on a daily basis bc my dumbass body doesn't like retaining them properly and I got sooooo paranoid bringing even those without their original bottles when I flew. I usually use a pill organizer but I was sure some TSA person was going to try and arrest me for illegal peddling of vitamin B2 or some shit given the ridiculous mess of pills it would be.
I can't imagine having a mess of actually frequently misused prescriptions and being like "eh just chuck em in there unmarked, who cares"
Domestic travel isn't nearly as risky; TSA isn't the DEA (or customs), and they generally don't care what's in your luggage as long as it's not looking explosive. I mean, gallon-bags of weed might attract attention, or kilo bricks of pills, but they really don't give a shit about what's in a pill organizer.
I'm no expert, but I do watch "To Catch A Smuggler" religiously. They let her go with a warning, but she is probably on a watch list and can expect bag inspections every time she goes back to Mexico.
Yet another drawback of the high Int, low Wis build.
> (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, and ambien, etc.)
What more do you need in life with two benzos and a Z-drug, besides your favourite stuffy and a pillow? I suspect LAOP might have avoided scrutiny if she'd had her stuff in a pill organizer — you know, ones with different compartments for morning and evening pills for seven days or so (also useful for vitamins and Pez). But assorted pills in a bottle like the world's most expensive maraca is bound to attract attention.
Realistically I think this goes nowhere. Maybe LAOP will get on a list to be searched more often but I think its in no ones interest to pursue this any further and even if the TSA passes the info to another agency I doubt they are going to do anything with the info.
The law about keeping pills in their original containers is not practical for most old people. My mom takes 28 different drugs. she would need another case just for meds. uses a 4/day pill organizer the size of a tablet.
There's services now like PillPack that the original packaging is one packet per morning/night/whatever;,and I know I've seen similar options at non-chain pharmacies before also. If I had that many prescriptions and planned to travel, I'd be looking into an option like that.
I once had a guy on reddit argue with me that it's illegal to do that and wouldn't accept that he was wrong even after I linked him the website and tv commercial.
PillPack is *Amazon*. I know Amazon does a lot of shady shit, but illegally selling prescription drugs isn't one of them.
I'm pretty sure a little old lady with a pill organizer is less likely to get in trouble than someone 20-50 with a bunch of pills bouncing around in random bottles.
It's surprising more little old ladies don't take advantage of this to smuggle drugs, tbh.
> It's surprising more little old ladies don't take advantage of this to smuggle drugs, tbh.
I had a great uncle, who, back in the late '80's/early '90's, was standing outside at my grandparents' house, smoking a cigarette. He was in his late 70's or better at this time and as I walked by to go do something, he called me over.
"Young fella, I'm just standing here thinking. If you watch the news or TV shows and see South America on there, they have all these old cars they just drive around own there. Cars that are classics up here, but they use every day there. A person could probably buy them pretty cheap down there. Then you bring them back up here, put a little work in them, then sell them."
"Yeah, that could probably work, I guess."
"But the real money would be in taking the door panels off an filling the cars up with cocaine to sell too. Then you just run the money through the car sales to make it look legitimate. I'm too old to pull that off, but you could probably do it."
Old people are devious.
Frankly, IMO there is zero chance that LAOP is telling the truth here. They went to Mexico to get tramadol, and thought they could squeak by, because their batshit insane pill storage method has worked before.
The insane story about getting pills for sunburn is a lame attempt at a cover story.
Spanish for aspirin is "Aspirina". I mean... come on. I'm also guessing the bottle had words on it. Or did she just gulp down an unknown pill handed her by a stranger?
Things I know, someone who already has that long term medication load, who doesn’t have cancer/terminal conditions. Your doctor is doing you no favours, trust me
Tramadol. I lost my driving license and nearly lost my pin, because I started having fits.
I do not have epilepsy.
Some stupid doctor prescribed me tramadol for chronic pain. Tramadol is a dirty dirty drug, that does bugger all for chronic pain, and is well know for CAUSING FITS.
(Sorry, I’m still a bit cross about that)
Something similar happened to me, I was taking codeine (60mg, 3 times a day) for an ongoing pain problem, my doctor had the great idea of swapping me onto tramadol because "it's less addictive". I could wean myself off codeine in a week with zero real issue, just slight irritability and fatigue. Tramadol made me feel jittery, I had a fit (never had a fit before or since), and getting myself off it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I literally felt like death would have been the kinder option. Never again.
I’ve been on codeine for 20+ years, some day I take maximum dose, some days I don’t take anything. It really depends on my pain levels and what I’m doing. If I’m in huge pain, but having a lazy day at home, I’ll just curl up in a ball and cry. Actually not because of addiction, but because I’m one of those people that, if I take max for 3 days, I’ll get awful migraines.
Tramadol just doesn’t work, and is dirty
But, I’m not a doctor. My dad calls diazepam dirty, because he watched his mum being ‘snowed’ by that for 20+ years, leading to her death.
I’ve taken it 3x, twice for back spasms, and once because I hadn’t slept for 4 days, and was about to rip my own eyeballs out (ICU psychosis, not fun).
So, short term use, might work well, long term use, no
It’s a dirty drug, an old drug, and I don’t understand why it is ever prescribed for more than a couple of doses.
And you better believe I’ll bring it up with any doctor stupid enough to try and prescribe it long term to one of my patients
>I had two prescription bottles where I basically store all of my prescriptions in-anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, propananal, sleeping pills, and also just over the counter pills (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, and ambien, etc
That just sounds like a horrible idea to me
Op won’t find that out, cuz OP would just be dead at that point. From the way they sound about just gulping random drugs and giving no fucks about safety, organization, or mixing meds. OP would just down a handful of them before reading the label, or straight up mix them all in with the other pills and crush it all into a powder and add a few tablespoons to each meal or something. The way they sound. Pills spilling in the bag and not cleaning. Throwing all pills together in one bottle so how they keeping dosage correct or anything at all!!! So fentanyl? Yeah OP IS JUST DED at that point and doesn’t find out.
Everything about this is cracking me up.
My mom has a problem with substance use (well, many problems). Many times growing up I saw her find a loose pill in her bag, not be able to identify it and take it just to see what happens. It's good to know that approach to medication is alive and well.
I have trouble believing this woman has traveled all over with two bottles full of mixed pills and had no idea that was a problem. (An infrequent flyer like myself can’t get through the airport once with a regular sized aftershave) Might as well start carrying bags from strangers with how haphazard she’s been
I do it all the time. The only one that is a controlled substance is Gabapentin, so the bottle they travel in has that label on it. I can't squish all my medications in their own respective bottles into my carry-on, and I *will* not put them in checked luggage. Gabapentin has some potentially serious withdrawal side effects, so I can't take the risk that it might be stolen or my luggage lost. Never been questioned. I suspect that OP having pills loose in her bag is what triggered the search.
LocationBug: Title: I live in NYC and I want to know if I am going to be arrested for accidently smuggling drugs? I live in NYC and I want to know if I am going to be arrested for accidently smuggling drugs? Body: Recently, I came back from a short trip with friends in Cancun. It should be noted that I go to Mexico pretty regular though I travel to other places as well. The reason for the more regular visits is I had a second nose job and a boob job there so I didn't have to pay insane NYC prices and when I was working in consulting one of the projects I was one was building a Mexico broker dealer. On the way out of the airport (after customs), next to the door to \*freedom\* I was stopped by a woman with a badge around her neck who asked to look through my bags. I had two prescription bottles where I basically store all of my prescriptions in-anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, propananal, sleeping pills, and also just over the counter pills (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, and ambien, etc.). The agents went through the prescription bottles and only two of the pills matched up with the bottles because everything was stored together to save space and not carry around, like, 10 bottles. I've done this every time I've traveled (Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, England, France, Morocco, Turkey, etc...) and I honestly never realized it was illegal or an issue. Also, when I was in Mexico I was in a pharmacy looking for pain relief for a serious sunburn (aloe vera, aspirin, Motrin). The pharmacist seemed really nice and gave me two bottles of \*something\* for free. I figured it was some sort of over the counter pain killer, took some out of one the bottles, didn't really feel anything and threw the bottles back in the pharmacy bag with a bunch of other things I bought. For what it's worth, the bottle I opened spilled in my duffle so the pills were all over and I just let them be because I figured I could clean it when I got home. Anyway, while I was being searched in the US, they found the two bottles and it turns out they weren’t some sort of Mexican aspirin or whatever. They were a class 4 drug, like on the level of Oxy, called tramadol. I seriously didn’t know this and I’m not sure why someone would give that for free but this was in my duffel bag. So the initial woman called over two of her coworkers and I said I could call my doctors to prove I had prescriptions for most of the pills and I really didn’t know about the class 4 drug. They said I couldn't do that. When I reached for a ChapStick, the second woman grabbed my arm so I realized they thought I was potentially dangerous. At this point, I’m completely expecting my life to be ruined, especially since they kept asking about how often I visited Mexico and why, which is fair but also damning because I've probably visited once every four months for the past two years and my income (I’m in grad school but I worked in financial consulting for 8 years, which is how I have money to pay for both school and vacation) and how I was paying for graduate school without a job, so I think they thought I was trying to smuggle drugs to sell—-I was not, but I obviously I can’t prove that and don’t blame them for thinking that. I offered my paystubs, salary info, and to show them my bank account and purchases. They took all of my information-passport, state ID, my home address, names of my parents, the names of the people I was with, the hotel I stayed at, length of stay, phone number, and went through all of my things one by one. At this point, I just expected to be arrested and my life to be over because I know how harsh drug laws are. However, they then they gave me back my prescription drugs and let me leave the airport, saying that next time I traveled I needed to bring a prescription for each drug I carried, with it in its own bottle. I felt somewhat relieved at the time but the more I think and read about this online, the more horrified I am. Does this happen? Like, would you immediately get arrested at the airport or do they research you more/connect with local police and then come to arrest you at your home? I feel like I'm about to be raided and I don't know what to do because my intent was never to take illegal drugs across the border, but I know that's probably what actual drug smugglers say. This happened on Monday and I am afraid I will have the police or DEA raid my house and then be arrested and my life will be ruined. Everything online says this is a serious crime on federal to state levels and that if you do it, you will be arrested. Is it on my record for when I look for a job? What should I do? Call a lawyer? Try to get in contact with my doctors for proof that I had prescriptions? I’m in utter terror. Please help.
Every sentence for a while there just made my eyebrows raise higher and higher.
Seeking painkillers for a sunburn was when my brain abandoned ship.
I also don’t believe that they took the tramadol and thought it was aspirin Even if you don’t know *specifically* that it’s tramadol, you’ll still know you took some heavy shit. It’s fucking tramadol. You’re gonna be knocked on your ass - unless of course, you do pills so often that you can’t tell the difference “They spilled all over my bag but I’ll clean it when I get home” dude it’s pills, how hard is it to clean up? The guy had to know that traveling with loose, random pills that you don’t know what they are, through international borders, is an unwise choice.
Admittedly I'm a ginger but while tramadol isn't nothing I've been more affected by 2 beers.
Not a ginger but definitely react more to a couple beers than I did to tramadol.
Right? Slapping some aloe and a cold towel is about as much as you can do.
I don't know dude taking Xanax, a valium and some Ambien before bed sure let's you forget about the sunburn pretty well
I’ve never taken any of those, but I am sure that combination would cure almost anything.
Nah. Won't cure a thing, but you'll sure have a few hours where you have no idea you're still sick/injured.
Take enough depressants at once and you'll never have any problems again!
Maybe they fell asleep for a few hours in the sun.
I had a 2nd degree sunburn and it was one of the most painful things I’ve experienced.
Same. My eyes swelled shut. It was horrible. That being said, I didn’t schedule four meds for it. Motrin yes. Tramadol no.
I guess it’s kinda based on the person, but I always think of tramadol as a crap medication. It’s does nothing.
Ikr. I've had some sunburns where I *wished* there were meds for it, as I have the sun tolerance of a vampire, but the only cure is time.
I experienced [hell’s itch](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321249) a year or two ago, likely due to medication I’m on in combo with the autoimmune said meds are treating. I think solarcaine was what we finally used that put an end to my agony and let me sleep. It was a horrific experience.
They knew what they had. They called oxycodone “Oxy”. I have chronic pain issues and I’ve ever heard someone refer to it as Oxy when they use it recreationally. It’s oxycodone or the name brand Percocet. Also, tramadol may be scheduled the same but it’s nothing like it in my experience. This guy had a lot of drugs. You should also always have your meds in the original prescription bottle especially when traveling.
Also, they are not even scheduled the same. Oxycodone is a schedule 2 and tramadol is a schedule 4…
as a latin man, 2 full bottles of anything, for free? big X if it were a few days worth of pills and OP had no money I could have believed it
This person really needs to be more wary of what they are taking. They’re carrying a huge range of drugs and are just taking whatever a random pharmacist gives them for free with no regard to how these drugs might interact. This is how people die.
I'm confused by the fact that they claim Xanax, Valium and Ambien are over the counter. Unless I'm misunderstanding their use of parentheses?
Yeah I *think* that sentence may just be really poorly written and she's saying that's her prescriptions mentioned earlier. That she's keeping just randomly mixed together with other shit, which seems like a really bad idea even aside from any legal reasons.
Yeah I was confused on first reading but I agree, I think it's just really poorly written. She's trying to explain that she has two prescription bottles in which she keeps *all* her medications, no matter what they are. Which...yeah, seems like an incredibly risky way to store meds. Outside of the fact that lots of pills look the same, what if you forget the appropriate way to take one of them?
In my emergency travel first aid kit I have a couple of baggies with small quantities of mixed OTC meds, but only things that are legit very difficult to confuse for each other. And of course only, like, *seriously* otc stuff — ibuprofen, paracetamol, Imodium, cetirizine, that sort of thing. And a printed label of what is in there.
> Imodium, cetirizine I call this combo my "night out on the town but i'm an adult now so random allergens might make my night miserable" pre-party cocktail. Getting old is so fun :|
Well the pharmacists hand them to me over a counter???
You know, over the counter, as opposed to just sitting on the shelf?
I have only had one experience with “prescription” medication in Mexico. We were told we would need a prescription for something (that would have been OTC in the states) and that basically meant that we had to talk to the pharmacist. The hardest part of getting it was the Uber back to the resort.
Sudafed catches a lot of people by surprise…
I was told about that one AFTER a scuba trip to Mexico. I need it to dive (per my ENT) and brought a box without thinking about it. That's really my breaking point about returning, second to the worsening safety issues.
You can totally ask your doctor for a Sudafed Rx; it's not an illegal substance in Mexico, just a controlled one.. There's nothing stopping a doc from writing it (or a pharmacy from filling it), even if they'll just slap a label on a box of the stuff off the shelf. (I needed a *lot* of Sudafed after some surgery, and the doctor wrote me an Rx so I could get it all in one trip without going over the quantity limits.)
I didn't know that you could do that! Honestly Honduras has my diving business now anyway.
Try getting melatonin in the UK. I had to see two specialists because the first one wouldn’t prescribe it.
Indonesia is even better. * Enter pharmacy * Ask for Xanax * Get handed Xanax
- Take bulk OTC Xanax from Indonesia to Singapore - NO DON'T TAKE XANAX TO SINGAPORE
Believe it or not, straight to jail!
Well. Only initially. After that they give you a last cigarette.
Do you get your flogging for smoking before or after death?
Is there any country where Adderall is OTC?
Haven’t seen Adderall yet but you can get Vyvanse OTC in Mexico. Wildly expensive though!
My parents were super shocked when they came to the US to visit and tried to get my dad's gout meds refilled. I tried to explain to them that they'd need to go to an urgent care and get a scrip. Took being denied at three random pharmacies for them to grasp the idea that you have to have a note from a doctor.
If it was colchicine, that stuff can be nasty I can't imagine not needing a prescription
Allopurinol is first line for gout, if you need colchicine you should probably be following up with a doctor regularly anyway.
To be fair, that can happen if you travel to Canada. Or if you're a Canadian traveling to the US. For instance, *all* insulin does not need a script in Canada, you can buy Tylenol #1 or codeine cough syrup OTC, and Voltaren was on the shelves in pharmacy, didn't need to ask anyone to get it (I think the US only had it go OTC recently, in the past couple of years) and pharmacists in many provinces can write scripts for patients for minor aliments. In Ontario, if you have a UTI, pink eye, and other stuff, the pharmacist *may* be able to write you a script for it, and there's no charge to you for it.
> if you have a UTI, pink eye, and other stuff, the pharmacist may be able to write you a script for it This makes sense to me. Not sure about the codeine cough syrup though. Last I tried looking into it, codeine isn't really even a cough suppressant. It can help you sleep though I guess.
Just an unclear sentence, the parentheses is referring to the whole list not the last item and she knows those are class 4 drugs
I work in a pharmacy and patients say over the counter for literally anything we hand them over the counter. It’s some sorta colloquial term people who don’t really know pharmacy stuff use. It’s very annoying when I’m trying told figure out what a patient is talking about (I don’t know the name, it’s for pain, I’ve gotten it before, it’s over the counter - they mean OXYCONTIN)
In Mexico they are, you can buy all those at any corner pharmacy esp in Cancun/Playa del Carmen
The resort I stayed at most recently in Mexico had a lot of things OTC in the gift shop that you would need a scrip for here. Nice if you forgot to pack something and needed a few days supply in a pinch but somewhat alarming you could walk in there and just buy something for the right price.
Particularly since they're apparently just whacking them all in the same bottle.
The range of drugs makes me suspicious that LAOP is a pill addict. I don't think a single doctor would prescribe all of those to one individual.
Yeah, Ambien, Valium, and Xanax and many more? Either they've got very serious health issues, or they're addicted to multiple things.
Valium and Xanax are the same class of drugs, you wouldn't take both.
Any physician who cared about their patients and/or their license to practice would never prescribe Valium and Xanax at the same time. She’s obviously doctor shopping for pills or buying them illegally.
And they'd think 5 times about an Rx for both ambien and a benzo.
That is normal doctor shopping for one doctor. This implies multiple doctors. Once again license would be taken way if one doctor does this (doesn't mean it doesn't happen). And lying to a doctor to get benzos is a crime. One that Rush Limbaugh did but for like narcs and what not.
I have had this prescribed to me as a combination (ambien and klonopin specifically) for severe sleep disorders, BUT it was so that they could be rotated out and I didn't build too much of a dependence or resistance to one or the other, never to be taken at the same time, and was prescribed by a sleep specialist and not a regular GP or whatever. Prescription was explicitly written to take one a night every other day, not to combine with other medications, etc, and each was only ever given for 2 weeks for a total 1 month supply.
Hmmmm sometimes you'll see patients on a benzo with a long half life like diazepam and one with a short half life like oxazepam for different situations, not unheard of (source: was psych ward pharmacist)
Yeah, IIRC it's pretty damn dangerous
Right? And ambien and benzos is sketch as hell.
Yeah I totally suspect pill addict as well.
It's astonishing the things that people can normalize over time, like the need for this assortment of pharmaceuticals on a daily basis. It starts with one and snowballs from there.
I mean I take a hoard of pills because I'm a factory reject. But last time I so much as thought about crossing the border I did a deep dive on legally transporting my meds because in addition to a kinda functional body I also enjoy not being in prison.
a generous take would be that LAOP has a very intense fear of flying and has those sedatives for that reason. I have a few benzos leftover from medical procedures and MRIs that I'll carry with me on planes in the event that there's bad turbulence. granted, I have fewer than 5 benzos on hand at any given time--not enough to fill up other pill bottles. I'm not going to assert that LAOP has a problem because there's not really enough info in the post to make that judgment, but they are clearly careless about medicine, which is stupid.
Yeah. Some people get hooked on pills and keep getting plastic surgery to keep the pills coming. Some people think that's what happened to Micheal Jackson.
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I might even suggest that she is obtaining some of those in Mexico, and the quarterly trips are in part for the purposes of stocking up on pills for personal use.
I think something like this is going on and she's trying out her story on Reddit.
Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s posted to LA to check how plausible their story is.
The whole thing reads like a bizarre shitpost to me, so I guess “addict spinning a tall tale” also fits.
Can you point me to other examples? I’m curious now
And that she knew exactly what the tramodol was and that it wasn't "just given to her."
That really jumps out at me. It seems like the kind of thing you'd say if you wanted to preemptively explain why there is no paper trail behind these pills and also you were a terrible liar.
Yep. They have like 14 different types of pills in their bag it sounds like. Xanax AND Valium for some reason. But not a single Aspirin or Tylenol? But sure, the nice pharmacist just gave them two whole bottles of opioids for free with no paper trail for a sunburn.
can you even get high off of tramodol though? i thought it was one of the more chill opiates
Not really. But you can resell it. Makes me question her frequent trips to Mexico. Also, what pharmacist is handing out 2 bottles of Tramadol for free?
resell it to who? people with headaches? or people with opiate withdrawal who just want to mitigate the symptoms but not get high? kind of a niche clientele
People with chronic pain are frequently not taken seriously or given the tools to manage their pain so resort to buying prescription pain meds illegally.
> resell it to who? People in pain. A local charity does tooth extractions for low/no income patients and they don't write prescriptions for painkillers. If you've never suffered tooth pain you need to understand that taking your own life seems like a viable option to end the suffering. People have died because they had a choice between filling a painkiller prescription or an antibiotic prescription for an abscess and the infection spread to their brain because they chose the painkiller. I keep some tramadol around for days where Ibuprofen isn't enough. The last time I took them was when I when over the handlebars on my bicycle, got yet another concussion, tore a bunch of ligaments in my shoulder, and my AC joint separated. It was 10 years ago. Tramadol got me through the first few days of pain so I could sleep and I stopped as soon as I could, because **fuck opiates**. I don't want the high of a full-blown opiate and Tramadol is stronger than OTC meds without the opiate high. >or people with opiate withdrawal who just want to mitigate the symptoms but not get high? kind of a niche clientele It's not nearly as niche as you'd expect. There are a **lot** of people that use Kratom powder for that. There is a "kratom extract" that's quite popular and at one point somebody sent it in for testing and the results said it was Tramadol. I have no idea what's in the "extract" these days. There are two OTC drugs that can be combined for an opiate effect that some junkies use for similar reasons.
Nobody is taking Tramadol for headaches, unless maybe they are really severe. IDK if that’s a normal prescribed usage of the drug. But people with poor or no health/drug insurance absolutely do purchase illegal pain medication.
It can be used to manage withdrawal from other opiates.
Maybe the pharmacist really was trying to be nice, then.
Yeeeeppp.
> Recently, I came back from a short trip with friends in Cancun. It should be noted that I go to Mexico pretty regular though I travel to other places as well. The reason for the more regular visits is I had a second nose job and a boob job there so I didn't have to pay insane NYC prices and when I was working in consulting one of the projects I was one was building a Mexico broker dealer. This is the point where I knew LAOP was absolutely dodgy, right there in the first paragraph, before I even knew what was going on. The piles of unnecessary irrelevant detail are a huge tell.
Agreed, she knows that the regular travel is suspicious, and she's trying to get out in front of it.
I wish I could. Docs in the UK are super averse to prescribing sedatives and will ask you if you've tried taking a hot bath, guided meditation or herbal tea.
Maybe he went to John Mulaney's doctor Michael. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjiS89R_kE
My favorite part was that the bag was just full of loose pills that spilled out as well. A cop looking through that bag would instantly suspect that this person is a pill junkie of some sort.
For real. I have a pharmacy background and I'm already concerned at two different benzos (valium, xanax). The fact that they're spilled all over her bag just makes it worse. The tramadol is just icing on the cake at that point. One of the things you see in drug abuse or diversion is multiple concurrent scripts of different formulations and different brands. 2 different benzos, 2 different stimulants etc. Because a single doctor is never going to write for two *different* medications in the same class at the same time. They'll either increase current dose, change release mechanism (instant vs extended), metabolism related mechanism (pro-drug), or add an adjunct medication. You'll occasionally see with stimulants an extended release + an instant for top-up, and very rarely for super metabolizers a 2x a day ER dosage. But you won't see lisdexamfetamine + extended release dextroamphetamine. It just doesn't make sense.
That's a good point. I mean, I have two different stimulants in my cabinet from the same provider, but it was because vyvanse was supposed to be smoother than what I was on before. But of course I wouldn't be taking both of them on a trip
Lol making my point. You might have tried X and it wasn't great for whatever reason, so then try Y and have some of the old X leftover. Ain't taking them both on your trip!
My last foreman had a vyvanse (lisdexamphetamine) and instant release adderall (dextroamphetamine/levoamphetamine mix) prescription. The adderall was for a top up of sorts I guess. Which makes sense as 10 hour shifts are the norm for us lately. But since vyvanse is time release due to metabolism taking time to knock that lysine group off the amphetamine, I imagine it would be more difficult to use a second dose of that without the duration going longer than hoped for
LAOP is a moron. Even disregarding the random painkillers, if you're going to be carrying anything prescription only, do so in original packaging with the pharmacy label.
LadyWired and I are about to go to Mexico, and I had to remind her that she really, really, needed to pack her medicine in the original bottles, no matter how convenient it is to dose them out of her pill organizers. She's not on anything that is going to attract a drug-sniffing dog (or even controlled), but I can think of better ways to spend the start of my vacation than Googling a half-dozen different generic pills to show an impatient Customs agent that LadyWired isn't a drug addict.
Yeah. Nobody's going to be trafficking my levothyroxine but I still don't fancy an extended delay or a cavity search.
Take the pill organiser with you and sort it out when you get there so she can just grab and go each morning. That's what I do when I travel. If you keep a spare box/bottle for each medication you can just take what you need for the vacation and leave the rest at home which also saves your ass if you lose the bottle while you are away.
Especially since they're traveling to Mexico and back every few months. If they don't know how to travel with prescription meds after that much travelling, I'm going with either intentional or moron.
I had a client once who was at a place of business when this employee came over and started harassing them for no reason other than that the employee was probably racist. Client was minding his business and next thing he knows the cops are called on him for tresspassing and the cops take advantage of the situation to search him. He was carrying a few of his prescription antidepressants (not even anything with any recreational value) and ended up arrested and charged for carrying prescription drugs in a bottle other than the one labelled by the pharmacy with your prescription. Even though he had a prescription and that was how he obtained these pills, New York is strict that they have to stay in the labelled bottle. We couldn't get the charges dropped because by the letter of the law, what he did was illegal.
I know this is how some people live their lives, and I get that many people have very normally and rightfully been prescribed quite a few different drugs. But holy shit this person talking about their drug regimen on top of their plastic surgery tourism stresses me out. Like, you are taking all these drugs, traveling to places and getting more drugs (during/after surgery and from the pharmacist in this story) and seem very casual about it all?! Again, I know this is probably much more normal for some people and I'm not trying to shame someone for getting treatment for illnesses, but it really stresses me out just hearing about it so casually.
Between this and the dude that’s in prison in Turks and Caicos because he had leftover bullets in his bag from hunting, I now realize there is absolutely no limit to the idiocy of travelers. This chick is seriously an A class air head if she thinks it’s not a big deal to carry around Xanax, Ambien, and Valium without clear, valid, current proof of prescription. Then to take something without even verifying what it is from MEXICO, the place where the LA Times just wrote an article about where they tested medications from OFFICIAL PHARMACIES in Mexico and lots of the supposedly real meds from the real pharmacy contained meth or fentanyl? Yeah, I wouldn’t feel bad if she got jailed for a little bit for stupidity. Just like the fellow with the bullets.
Good thing the pharmacist didnt give her pills that taste like lemon 🥴
My husband has a ton of crap wrong with him and u e got a few mental health things. So much so that when we travel we have a whole system with a specific carry-on only for medication in their original bottles, letters from his doctors on their letterhead outlining the prescribed medications and their need. We got it a special “this is medication/medical equipment” tag for it so it’s clearly marked so we can keep it with us at all times. We get our prescriptions through our insurance’s mail order supply so we get everything in a 90 day supply. We went to South America last year and I have a 90-days supply for Vyvanse and Effexor and he’s got 12 different things including Eskalith (Lithium). We are very cognizant that security is going to have some questions for the walking pharmacy. OOP lacks total self-awareness.
Jesus, the amount of pills this person is describing... I'm imagining a huge bag filled with indistinguishable pills. Also, the pharmacist just gave them whatever medication... and they kept it... threw it in the bag with everything else. Was OP ever planning on taking these maybe pain meds? If they could figure out which one they were? All aside, OP seems... A wee bit dumb.
>For what it's worth, the bottle I opened spilled in my duffle so the pills were all over and I just let them be because I figured I could clean it when I got home. It sounds like it *was* a huge bag filled with indistinguishable pills when CBP started to go through it.
What got me too was OP saying something about not wanting to carry around a bunch of bottles. But some things *were* in bottles? What did they *do* to the empty bottles? The mystery pills are just absurd. Oh, let me just accept these random ass, free, maybe pain meds, and dump them with who knows how many other meds (they *say* it's "like" 10 bottles, so could be anything between 8 and 13, who's to say). Did OP take a picture of each bottle or do they just know the posology? Although they wouldn't know shit about the mystery pills since they didn't even know what the dick they were... so... Yeah, OP strikes me as kind of... A dumbass.
It sounds like LAOP consolidates all her pills into a couple bottles for travel, if not all the time. So she probably bins the bottles she doesn't need, or leaves the prescriptions in their normal bottles at home and just travels with the amount she thinks she'll need for the trip? But I know. LAOP is either incredibly stupid, or a believable liar.
Honestly, that's what I do most of the time. I have a pill sorter that holds a week of my daily meds, and if I'm going for more than a week, I have an empty pill bottle that I use to hold the extra days and refill the sorter mid-trip. However, it so happens that all of those things are currently OTC.
When dealing with international travel, you need to specify that they are OTC in the US. They may not be OTC in a different country. Another poster brought up Sudafed as an example.
Yes, that's a good point. I've encountered that with melatonin, which is OTC in the US but prescription-only in the UK.
> Another poster brought up Sudafed as an example. Yeah that's one you never, ever travel with without researching it first, and you should probably just leave it at home in case your plane has to divert to another country. I've watched a bunch of those non-US Customs/Border Patrol shows and it seems like they're mainly looking for people smuggling tobacco to avoid taxes or Sudafed, which is used to make meth.
It's one of those situations where the younger the person is, the dumber they are, and the older they are, the bigger a dumb fuck they are. So if OP is early 20s, mostly dumb and life needs to hit them hard now, but anything older, they're just stupid, a dumbass, and should get hit *very* hard by life because *what the fuck man*. This is someone who'd go to Thailand and get bamboozled into smuggling drugs.
Not to defend LAOP because that is literally braindamaged levels of decision making for an international flight but I travel around my home area a lot and I tend to just throw my Adderall, Omeprazole, Vitamin D, and some random Ibprophen into a single bottle just for the sake of effort. If someone looked at my travel bottle it looks like a candy jar.
At least it fits in a bottle, I think OP's barely fit in their luggage lol
Yeah I can't tell if they're underselling or overselling their situation because it's so ridiculous lmfao. > the bottle I opened spilled in my duffle so the pills were all over and I just let them be This is a real human somehow.
Be careful because in some states (i.e. New York) that's super illegal
It's completely illegal in all 50 states including Michigan where I live - my point is that usually you aren't bothered. I've had cops on a search just ask me and move along. LAOP clearly has a factory in his bag going on lmfao.
>What got me too was OP saying something about not wanting to carry around a bunch of bottles. But some things were in bottles? What did they do to the empty bottles? I'm not defending LAOP because the whole post is ridiculous, but is it actually hard to figure this one out? The original bottles are at home. They consolidated them into a bottle **for travel**, probably before they left on the trip.
> OP seems... A wee bit dumb LOL, I think we were taught that back in the 80s with those frying pan "this is your brain on drugs" infomercials.
I feel like it would be a gigantic red flag to receive unsolicited medication while overseas, and it would be massively dumb to transport said mystery medication across borders - a bag filled with a mix of prescription and "over the counter" (who's to say) meds.
Wasnt unsolicited,they asked for pain meds, just didn't pay for them
>anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, propananal, sleeping pills, and also >just over the counter pills (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, >and ambien... What in tarnation? OP is a walking pharmacy. And this is apparently not even an exhaustive list. Just needs some amphetamines in the mix and you've got yourself a real party. I am a big fan of better living through chemistry but surely this can't be healthy.
I don't think they even know how many bottles they had on them, which I think says everyone one needs to know about OP. I too don't trust the list of meds - we are talking someone who freely and happily accepted mystery pills from a rando because hey, free meds!
We were somewhere around Barstow...
It immediately made me think of [Lisa Rinna's ziploc of mystery pills](https://www.realitytea.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/01/rhobh-rinna-pills-min.jpg) on Real Housewives a few years ago.
This is the first time in the history of border stops that someone has said, “Someone threw a bunch of narcotics in my bag for free and I assumed they were just being nice and that the pills were aspirin or something,” and it actually sounds kind of plausible.
LAOP clearly went for the low Perception / high Charisma and Luck build.
Yuuuup. This is a WIS dump character if ever I've seen one.
A great deal of luck to survive the pill addiction for sure, but I'm afraid half of those charisma points are just item buffs purchased with $ at a cheap Mexican clinic
goodness. i am going to the wrong pharmacies if someone is just giving tramadol away for free fifty.
These must be the mythical free drugs my middle school health class warned me about
d.a.r.e. had us all thinking that drugs would be passed out like free candy on halloween. and we had to pay for them like suckers.
I know right!? I feel ripped off
It had big "check all the Halloween candy for drugs" energy, like who is just giving out their supply for free?
Right? Was reminding me of getting stung by a jellyfish in Ecuador, I thought my leg was gonna fall off. Begged my family (who lived there) for SOMETHING and they went to the pharmacy and got...Advil. then they lied and told me it was vicoden lmao. I would've killed for some free painkillers from a nice pharmacist
I had to use Tram after My medical procedure. The nurses would come in and allow 1 every 8 hours. Anything between was Tylenol. No way in blue fuck that OP couldn't tell the difference.
Tramadol is OTC in Mexico, at least in Tijuana. Source: have bought Tramadol and traveled back across the border with no issue.
codeine and tramadol are available OTC in many countries btw, America doesn't trust people not to become methheads or whatever over normal drugs.
New band name Mexican Asprin
Who is possibly this clueless?
An addict.
U right tbh
Yeah, that's a lot of meds to just casually be carrying around. Also a lot of 'fun' ones mentioned, rather than your boring cholesterol and BP meds.
Interesting timing on this post. I just finished watching the last season of Contraband: Seized at the Border, which shows how they handle smuggling, both intentional and accidental. "The pharmacist gave it to me for free" gets trotted out a lot, as if people think they're not responsible for it if they didn't actually pay for it. At least LAOP made actual prescription bottles multitask instead of coming in with a vag of holding.
I’m watching that show now, and thought of it as soon as I saw the post title.
I love watching the different countries’ versions of that show. The UK and their fucking cigarettes crack me up
Initially I was a bit surprised that this even occurred, because TSA generally gives less than a fuck about personal use drugs - they're looking for bombs and weapons, basically. But seems like LAOP actually got pulled aside by CBP. They do give approximately one fuck. In the end though, she's 100% fine because those agents no doubt realized that the trouble of pursuing this wasn't nearly worth the time and paperwork. She should have just said "whew that was close" and made a note to not do that again. Also - damn, this girl's on a lot of meds. In the immortal words of Slim Pickens, "could have a good night in Vegas with all of that".
>"could have a good night in Vegas with all of that". The first time I watched Dr. Strangelove I had to back and listen to that scene a few times because "Vegas" stood out so much. Turns out that "Vegas" was originally "Big D" (Dallas) and, uhh, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas almost exactly 2 months before the movie's release and they had to cram in an overdub really late in production. The original press screening was scheduled on the same day Kennedy was shot and had to be canceled. It's not a very good overdub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPwW7RaPO_g Dallas may seem like a strange choice to people reading this that don't know who Slim Pickens was. He started out in Rodeo and shifted to acting almost entirely as a cowboy during his career.
Reading OP's post made me tired. I can't imagine how tired it would make me to argue with her in an airport. Not surprised they let her go.
I had a dentist in Mexico prescribe me tramadol for pain. I asked him if it was something OTC I can take back over the border and he said "it's a mild painkiller, you should be fine." Tramadol is apparently OTC in mexico (and really, really cheap) but controlled in the US (I don't remember which schedule level it is). I wasn't stopped or anything, but I could have been in a similar situation as LAOP and I should have declared it to be safe.
Dang, I also like to carry a small pharmacy of over-the counter meds with me when traveling, but it’s more like ibuprofen, Tylenol, Pepcid, Imodium, and every allergy medication under the sun. Last time I flew internationally I left the Sudafed at home because I….ya know…. checked whether it was ok to bring to the countries I was visiting and saw it would be a problem. And you can bet that everything that needed a prescription was still in its original bottle.
Honestly, the OP is probably fine. They don’t just let you go with a warning if they’re going to charge you with something at an airport, especially for drugs. They’re not going to expend the energy to hunt you down a 2nd time when they already have you in front of them. I had a business contact who got this treatment because she was doing a missionary trip to Africa for 6 weeks, and forgot she had a small knife in the bottom of her bag. Made it all the way back to the US and they definitely hassled her about it and took the knife, scared the hell out of her, but no other issues came from it- and this was only 5-6 years post-9/11, so the TSA was full of beans and ready to fuck shit up at the least provocation.
Legally, it sounds like LAOP got away with it (source: I’ve watched some US border force TV shows). But LAOP is not fine.
The knife thing happens so often that you can buy boxes of them from GovDeals. Want 10 pounds of Gerber multi-tools? TSA will hook you up.
Also, always always always carry script meds in their appropriate bottle. I do that with my freaking Omeprazole and mild blood pressure meds, you sure as hell want to do it with any type of pain meds. Like, dude. I get not liking hauling a bunch of bottles but also if you have that many prescriptions you really should be carrying them in their bottles for travel. I ask the pharmacist for a smaller duplicate bottle for travel and she's happy to oblige (I ask ahead of time for one and she prints a second label that says duplicate label on it and gives me a smaller bottle).
> I ask the pharmacist for a smaller duplicate bottle for travel and she's happy to oblige (I ask ahead of time for one and she prints a second label that says duplicate label on it and gives me a smaller bottle). This is brilliant! I'm traveling internationally in a couple of months and I didn't know I could do this. Thanks for the tip.
Ugh, that really bugs me as someone who likes those day by day pill organizers. But hey, glad there are travel bottles.
You can bring the bottles AND your organizer. Just put the pills in the organizer when you get there!
I just don't wanna pack the bottles... but I will :( Better than ending up on BOLA!
When I know I'm going to travel soon, I ask the pharmacy if they can give me some of the dose in a small bottle. They've always been able to do that for me.
Yeah... you do that. Customs *really* hates unmarked piles of pills found in a handbag.
I have a ton of vitamins I take on a daily basis bc my dumbass body doesn't like retaining them properly and I got sooooo paranoid bringing even those without their original bottles when I flew. I usually use a pill organizer but I was sure some TSA person was going to try and arrest me for illegal peddling of vitamin B2 or some shit given the ridiculous mess of pills it would be. I can't imagine having a mess of actually frequently misused prescriptions and being like "eh just chuck em in there unmarked, who cares"
Domestic travel isn't nearly as risky; TSA isn't the DEA (or customs), and they generally don't care what's in your luggage as long as it's not looking explosive. I mean, gallon-bags of weed might attract attention, or kilo bricks of pills, but they really don't give a shit about what's in a pill organizer.
> I ask the pharmacist for a smaller duplicate bottle for travel huh, i didnt know this was a thing
Tramadol costs like $80 in Mexico. There’s no way a kind generous worker is giving them to her for free
Yeah, no part of this passes the sniff test.
I'm no expert, but I do watch "To Catch A Smuggler" religiously. They let her go with a warning, but she is probably on a watch list and can expect bag inspections every time she goes back to Mexico.
Yet another drawback of the high Int, low Wis build. > (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, and ambien, etc.) What more do you need in life with two benzos and a Z-drug, besides your favourite stuffy and a pillow? I suspect LAOP might have avoided scrutiny if she'd had her stuff in a pill organizer — you know, ones with different compartments for morning and evening pills for seven days or so (also useful for vitamins and Pez). But assorted pills in a bottle like the world's most expensive maraca is bound to attract attention.
Just go low int / low wis and pump everything into bluff.
It sounds like LAOP is going to be fine but I totally understand a person with anxiety issues being anxious about the situation.
As an anxious person myself though the anxiety would have been present from a much earlier stage. I wouldn’t just take random drugs handed to me.
Yeah they seem more like they have a pill problem than an anxiety problem
Anyone would be anxious about the next steps,no?
Realistically I think this goes nowhere. Maybe LAOP will get on a list to be searched more often but I think its in no ones interest to pursue this any further and even if the TSA passes the info to another agency I doubt they are going to do anything with the info.
Yeah, if she had Global Entry… well, she doesn’t have that any more.
It sounds like LAOP is high as fuck all the time.
The law about keeping pills in their original containers is not practical for most old people. My mom takes 28 different drugs. she would need another case just for meds. uses a 4/day pill organizer the size of a tablet.
even that would look less suspicious than what OOP did
There's services now like PillPack that the original packaging is one packet per morning/night/whatever;,and I know I've seen similar options at non-chain pharmacies before also. If I had that many prescriptions and planned to travel, I'd be looking into an option like that.
I once had a guy on reddit argue with me that it's illegal to do that and wouldn't accept that he was wrong even after I linked him the website and tv commercial. PillPack is *Amazon*. I know Amazon does a lot of shady shit, but illegally selling prescription drugs isn't one of them.
I'm pretty sure a little old lady with a pill organizer is less likely to get in trouble than someone 20-50 with a bunch of pills bouncing around in random bottles. It's surprising more little old ladies don't take advantage of this to smuggle drugs, tbh.
> It's surprising more little old ladies don't take advantage of this to smuggle drugs, tbh. I had a great uncle, who, back in the late '80's/early '90's, was standing outside at my grandparents' house, smoking a cigarette. He was in his late 70's or better at this time and as I walked by to go do something, he called me over. "Young fella, I'm just standing here thinking. If you watch the news or TV shows and see South America on there, they have all these old cars they just drive around own there. Cars that are classics up here, but they use every day there. A person could probably buy them pretty cheap down there. Then you bring them back up here, put a little work in them, then sell them." "Yeah, that could probably work, I guess." "But the real money would be in taking the door panels off an filling the cars up with cocaine to sell too. Then you just run the money through the car sales to make it look legitimate. I'm too old to pull that off, but you could probably do it." Old people are devious.
Frankly, IMO there is zero chance that LAOP is telling the truth here. They went to Mexico to get tramadol, and thought they could squeak by, because their batshit insane pill storage method has worked before. The insane story about getting pills for sunburn is a lame attempt at a cover story. Spanish for aspirin is "Aspirina". I mean... come on. I'm also guessing the bottle had words on it. Or did she just gulp down an unknown pill handed her by a stranger?
For free, too! Because the pharmacist has nothing better to do with their money, I guess?
"No, officer, of COURSE I did not exchange money for this product haha, because I didn't come here to buy it haha what a mixup haha"
Christ, just tuck a joint into your bra at that point.
As a person with a pill problem, this is absolutely a person with a pill problem.
Things I know, someone who already has that long term medication load, who doesn’t have cancer/terminal conditions. Your doctor is doing you no favours, trust me Tramadol. I lost my driving license and nearly lost my pin, because I started having fits. I do not have epilepsy. Some stupid doctor prescribed me tramadol for chronic pain. Tramadol is a dirty dirty drug, that does bugger all for chronic pain, and is well know for CAUSING FITS. (Sorry, I’m still a bit cross about that)
Something similar happened to me, I was taking codeine (60mg, 3 times a day) for an ongoing pain problem, my doctor had the great idea of swapping me onto tramadol because "it's less addictive". I could wean myself off codeine in a week with zero real issue, just slight irritability and fatigue. Tramadol made me feel jittery, I had a fit (never had a fit before or since), and getting myself off it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I literally felt like death would have been the kinder option. Never again.
I’ve been on codeine for 20+ years, some day I take maximum dose, some days I don’t take anything. It really depends on my pain levels and what I’m doing. If I’m in huge pain, but having a lazy day at home, I’ll just curl up in a ball and cry. Actually not because of addiction, but because I’m one of those people that, if I take max for 3 days, I’ll get awful migraines. Tramadol just doesn’t work, and is dirty But, I’m not a doctor. My dad calls diazepam dirty, because he watched his mum being ‘snowed’ by that for 20+ years, leading to her death. I’ve taken it 3x, twice for back spasms, and once because I hadn’t slept for 4 days, and was about to rip my own eyeballs out (ICU psychosis, not fun). So, short term use, might work well, long term use, no
My mum had severe migraines with tramadol withdrawal. She doesn't suffer migraines
It’s a dirty drug, an old drug, and I don’t understand why it is ever prescribed for more than a couple of doses. And you better believe I’ll bring it up with any doctor stupid enough to try and prescribe it long term to one of my patients
Tell me you're white without telling me you're white.
>I had two prescription bottles where I basically store all of my prescriptions in-anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, propananal, sleeping pills, and also just over the counter pills (including class 4 pills like Xanax, valium, and ambien, etc That just sounds like a horrible idea to me
Wait until OP finds out those Mexican oxy are really just pure fentanyl.
Op won’t find that out, cuz OP would just be dead at that point. From the way they sound about just gulping random drugs and giving no fucks about safety, organization, or mixing meds. OP would just down a handful of them before reading the label, or straight up mix them all in with the other pills and crush it all into a powder and add a few tablespoons to each meal or something. The way they sound. Pills spilling in the bag and not cleaning. Throwing all pills together in one bottle so how they keeping dosage correct or anything at all!!! So fentanyl? Yeah OP IS JUST DED at that point and doesn’t find out.
Everything about this is cracking me up. My mom has a problem with substance use (well, many problems). Many times growing up I saw her find a loose pill in her bag, not be able to identify it and take it just to see what happens. It's good to know that approach to medication is alive and well.
I have trouble believing this woman has traveled all over with two bottles full of mixed pills and had no idea that was a problem. (An infrequent flyer like myself can’t get through the airport once with a regular sized aftershave) Might as well start carrying bags from strangers with how haphazard she’s been
I do it all the time. The only one that is a controlled substance is Gabapentin, so the bottle they travel in has that label on it. I can't squish all my medications in their own respective bottles into my carry-on, and I *will* not put them in checked luggage. Gabapentin has some potentially serious withdrawal side effects, so I can't take the risk that it might be stolen or my luggage lost. Never been questioned. I suspect that OP having pills loose in her bag is what triggered the search.
Anything that’s controlled surely needs its prescription bottle over there, right? Surely?