Man gets 4 years for possesion of .003 grams of pot at Dubai airport

[walldude]

Planning on going to or through Dubai? Better have all your clothes, your luggage, your shoes and anything else with you hosed down before you get there. .003 grams of pot isn't even visible to the naked eye and it was stuck to this guys shoe.

A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison.

Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai's main airport.

A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.

And that was nothing compared to the guy who got 4 years for having 3 poppy seeds on his clothes, which he got from a bread roll.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=512815&in_page_id=1770

[Mojambo]

1. Unfrickinbelievable. n/t

[Kittycat]

2. Surely their countries are appealing?

This is just insane!

[Bright Eyes]

3. Boy, this makes are our 'War On Drugs" seem rational

in comparison.

[ixion]

7. not really... if they find a seed in your car at the border

they take your car and you go to jail.

There is nothing rational or productive about this country's 'war' on drugs, or Dubai's, either.

[Mz Pip]

4. I guess Dubai

has the money to build lots and lots of prisons. Probably half the people entering that country have some of their banned substances on them.

Poppy seeds, Melatonin (why would that be illegal???), prescription codeine? I am in possession of all that stuff and I'm a middle aged retired educator. Hardly a threat to anyone or anybody. Sheesh.

This is just nuts.

[tridim]

5. Remind me never to book a vacation there.

That's outrageous.

Where's Monkey-brain going to hide his stash?

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. My son's girlfriend was detained in a Canadian airport

because there was cocaine residue on her money. If it had been Dubai, I guess they would have put her away for life.

[pitohui]

15. there is cocaine on all usa paper money

but i believe you, my husband was detained for having a common name (they told him that was the reason)

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. That's how she got out of it

She called her dad who called a Canadian attorney and the attorney pointed out to the customs people that most US currency has drug residue on it. I don't know what would have happened if she didn't have an attorney.

[pitohui]

52. i'm glad she's okay

they actually didn't need an attorney to tell them this, if they have brains in their head they already know it, ronald siegal did these tests for the us gov't some years ago now, it is not top secret information

i sometimes think canada hassles us just to prove that they are working with usa on the terra and drugs hysteria -- in other words, i think they're trying to please our gov't with this crap

but it's most wearing

[blm]

8. Dubai - largest shareholder of BCCI - biggest drugrunning, terrorfunding, armsdealing bank

in history.

They pull shit like this for IMAGE - they are a network of the biggest drugrunners in the world - the BFEE and their BCCI agenda that never ended.

[TomInTib]

10. Precisely

I have done Trade Shows (very lucrative) there, but a couple of years ago I decided to never go back exactly because of the points you make.

[Prefer]

9. How do they know where he stepped on the grain

How do they know it wasn't the Dubai airport?

[Submariner]

11. Dubai Customs did a .jpeg search on my hard drive

I was told that if they found anything resembling a naked woman on my laptop I was toast. They didn't look for drugs though, not that week anyway.

[walldude]

12. You serious?

Christ, I wasn't planning a trip to Dubai but now I'm going to be checking every country's laws before I go in. My wife would kill me if someone found the pictures of her on my laptop...

[Bobbieo]

13. Dubai's anti-drug policy is well known!!! The man should have known better

They can GD do any thing they want to over there and get away with it.
No one is stopping them.

[walldude]

18. The man should know better? He had a speck on his shoe

smaller than the naked eye can see. WTF are you talking about. He could have picked it up anywhere. What about the guy with the poppy seeds from the bread he was eating? Maybe we should all stop eating bread. Or how about the guy with the Melatonin? Gimme a break with this bullshit, read the article I posted.

[pitohui]

20. how should he have known better?

i'm going to ask you how you would know if you used a public restroom and somebody else's 0.003 of weed got stuck on your shoe, trust me, you wouldn't

i'm going to ask you how you would know if the creep next to you ate a poppy roll at heathrow airport and a seed got caught in your sweater, that's right, you wouldn't

fuck dubai, it's too expensive anyway, i'll continue to route my african flights thru nairobi or johannesburg

[Bobbieo]

23. People like you lie in wait on DU to strike - The best thing to do is stay to hell away from Dubai!

[walldude]

44. WTF are you babbling about?

I'm waiting to strike? No I'm defending a guy who is unjustly jailed. Apparently I'm not the only person who thinks this is ok. Matter of fact you are the only person who seems to thing it is ok.

[MadHound]

28. Still doesn't make it moral or just

The guy could very well have known the laws of Dubai, and still picked up that speck on the floor of the Dubai airport.

Hell, if you're going to Dubai, I hope you don't take any US cash with you, there's probably .003 grams of coke on each and every single bill.

Oh, and if you happen to have a friend that smokes dope, don't wear the clothes that you had on when you visited that friend, they probably also have THC residue in them. Don't let that stoner bump into you either before you take your trip, never know what can shake loose.

Transference of such a minuscule amount of any substance is all too easy, so please, stop blaming the victim.

[Occulus]

33. Yo've GOT to be KIDDING

a speck smaller than the eye can perceive, weighing less than a grain of sugar, on the sole of his shoe- and he should have known better???

What the fuck sort of acid did you eat, anyway?

[DS1]

51. You're kinda slow, aren't ya

[Submariner]

27. Same thing in Qatar

I was not inspected in Doha, but an hour north in Ras Laffan Industrial City they checked for .jpegs as I awaited my site pass.

Put your wifes pix on a flash drive buried in your puter case. They didn't ask about backup drives or flash drives.

[Habibi]

32. Geez!

That kills my taking-my-laptop-to-Dubai gambit. Seriously. Hope they have net cafes there.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

14. Now that's what I call

ZERO TOLERANCE.

JEESH.

[Bobbieo]

19. Bet we know how the celebs get away with taking or buying drugs in Dubai

[JHB]

47. That was my thought too...

The man was guilty of IIFD.

Insufficiently Influential Friends in Dubai.

He'll get out once he pays all the appropriate bribes fines and court fees.

[mdmc]

16. Hillary and Barack will be silent on the drug war

Theys are allies

[tridim]

17. Obama wants to decrim Cannabis.

[mdmc]

22. Do you have a link my friend?

That would be too cool for school.

[tridim]

25. Here..

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080131/NATION/896961936/0/METRO

[Alexander]

26. Here. In this video Obama says "We need to...decriminalize our marijuana laws"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wQr9ezr8UeA

[Submariner]

29. See....Now your catching on

Why do you think Obama-mania has swept the country?

We are Stoner-nation and all the heads are coming out for Obama.

Plain and simple; Obama has the stoner vote. Black, white, young, old, male, female, blue collar, white collar, rich, poor. Obama cuts right across Hillary's demographic.

Ya get it? :o

[mdmc]

30. got it

cool:)

[tridim]

31. Well, that and he thinks the WOD needs to be revisited because it's unfair.

Apparently Hillary thinks the WOD (and thus putting productive cannabis smokers in prison) is just dandy as-is.

[AlertLurker]

24. They don't want ANYONE muscling in on THEIR turf.

[mvccd1000]

34. Guess we SHOULD have let them take over our port operations!

We wouldn't have to worry about smugglers bringing things in through the ports any more. :)

I wonder why he got searched? I've been through Dubai 23 times in the last four years, and never even been looked at twice. I'm thinking about getting the e-pass card so I can just swipe through the gate and avoid the lines altogether. (Anyone who's waited in one of those many lines with 10,000 other people to get the stamp there knows what I'm talking about.)

[devilgrrl]

35. Yeah, gotta watch out for the "whacky weed" - it's so dangerous and deadly

you could lose your car keys.

[MrSlayer]

36. Insanity.

How do they expect to get people to come over to the "World's biggest tourist trap" if you can't party? This might be the most ludicrous draconian sentence I've ever heard of.

[mvccd1000]

37. Oh, there's pleny of partying in Dubai!

They definitely have a nightlife not to be missed. :)

[JCMach1]

38. Of all types...

[MrSlayer]

39. So why are they busting this guy's balls over a microscopic fleck of weed?

If there is plenty of partying going on there why bother with this nonsense? Stories like this certainly dissuade people from visiting.

[mvccd1000]

41. That's why I suspect there may be more to the story than we hear.

As I said, I've been through there something like 23 times. Never even gotten a second look from customs/immigration. Your luggage goes through a scanner on the way out of the airport, but other than that they don't even pay much attention to you. What did this guy do that got him pulled aside somewhere and searched or sniffed?

[walldude]

43. Did you see his pic? Rastafarian... profiled

If you read the article it's not just him, there are many others busted for stupid shit. Poppy seeds. Melatonin. Codine.

[mvccd1000]

45. I guess I can believe it.... I just wonder when and how and where they pick them.

Like I said, I've been through there a lot of times, and I just haven't seen 'em pull anyone out of line for any extra inspection. I'm wondering what triggers it.

We do get warned to be very careful of things like prescription drugs; make sure the original drugs are in the original container, and they're not expired, etc. Still, in nearly four years of constant travel through there, I've never been looked at. (I hope I'm not jinxing myself; I'll be there in two weeks. Watch me get the full cavity search this time!) :)

[pitohui]

53. what did the poster above do?

sounds like a DUer in this very thread was searched and threatened with arrest if there was even a nude photo on his computer

random means random and maybe you can do everything right and still get fucked over and searched

i've been searched many times in many countries and many airports and i'm a middle aged white woman

i think some searches are done specifically to impress usa gov't and media that the other country in question is as nuts about security as the usa is, so they won't get on the state dept shit list

[Smith_3]

40. They make a mockery of justice. Screw them and their country.

Cut all business ties with Arabic Emirates. They obviously choose to live in the Middle Ages.

[mainegreen]

42. There should be a service to bust people out of these banana republics.

You read far too often about people being held in prison there for things we really should not tolerate.
And god forbid you are a woman. You can be held captive there, and sadly our government wont do a damned thing.

Edited to add: Perhaps I should call it a banana monarchy as they make no attempt to even wear the trappings of democracy there.

[KamaAina]

46. Bush** better watch it when he goes to visit his Halliburton buddies

then again, I suppose they've got special rules for him and his ilk :eyes:

[NNN0LHI]

48. He is lucky they didn't cut his head off

I have read they even drug test some people and put them in the slammer for what they may have ingested weeks before arriving.

Thats our great ally there.

Don

[Romulox]

49. WAAAAY more people in US jails for pot than in Dubai jails. nt

[butterfly77]

54. And they are not stopping anything...

I walk past teens at the malls smoking in public and other places, this is stupid,,,

[riderinthestorm]

50. And be careful about going there if you are gay.

I guess the penalties for homosexuality are pretty stiff. Or if you are raped, and try to press charges - they charge YOU with homosexuality and/or sex crimes!

The story of this French teenage boy, his rape and his subsequent horror with Dubai is pretty grotesque.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/31/africa/dubai.php

If Dubai wants to be the tourism capital of the world, it's got a long way to go with how it treats tourists. It's still very backwards legally in regards to single women, gays, Israelis etc.

:scared: Keith Brown's story doesn't sound like some kind of isolated anomaly unfortunately when you google tourism stories and Dubai.