Tag: Drug Travel

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TSA Agent Leaves Exasperated Note in Rapper's Drug-Filled Luggage

December 16, 2011 at 3:00 PM | by | Comments (0)

Sometimes (most of the time) TSA agents make a point of being studiously straight-laced. That's more or less how we prefer our airport security officials, and we still reference this very matter-of-fact story from last year. Somebody was ejected from San Diego International Airport for refusing to choose between a full-body scan or a patdown. There's a job to be done; TSA agents intend to do that job; and they get sad and grumpy when you don't let them.

It's also worth noting that when TSA officials decide to show off their freestyle improv skills, things tend to go awry. Last October, a TSA agent searching journalist Jill Filipovic's checked baggage found a vibrator and left Filipovic a note encouraging her to "get her freak on." An angst-filled blogosphere firestorm immediately erupted and the agent was duly punished. We personally weren't really offended because we suspected that the note might be a failed attempt at being sassy.

Now a TSA agent has left another destined-to-go-viral note in another piece of checked luggage. We anticipate that, in contrast to the incident with Filipovic, the Internet will respond with something less than outrage.

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No More Passing the Dutch as Holland Moves to Ban Tourists from Weed Cafes

November 14, 2011 at 3:36 PM | by | Comment (1)

It's happening! That ban on selling marijuana to tourists and allowing them in Dutch pot cafes—the one Holland's been discussing since earlier this year—will begin taking effect next year. And while "next year" seems like a far enough time away to not freak about this, may we remind you that next year is little more than a month-and-a-half away, and the ban hits January 1, 2012.

Don't go booking the first KLM direct to Amsterdam quite just yet, however. This first phase of the pot-for-tourists ban will only reach the southern parts of the country—Limburg, North-Brabant and Zeeland—where drug tourism is more of a problem (the rest of Europe just comes across the border down there for a joint or two, you see). Maastricht has been trialling the program since October, actually. Regardless, officials promise to include Amsterdam and the rest of the country in the ban come January 2013.

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Maastricht Keeps the Sticky Icky for Itself, Bans Foreign Tourists from Weed Cafes

October 3, 2011 at 10:35 AM | by | Comment (1)

We're not going to say "I told you so," but we kind of did back in May when Holland first announced plans to possibly close "coffee shops" to tourists after crime rose. Now, from this last Saturday, the hammer has dropped and foreign tourists are not permitted in the coffee shops of Holland's southernmost city of Maastricht.

There are exceptions: Germans and Belgians are still welcome, but no Americans or Italians or English or French or...we could continue but you get the point. And if you are German or Belgian, then be prepared to show your passport and allow the coffee shop to retain your identity information for up to two days, even if you're only in the shop to smoke weed for fifteen minutes.

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Total Bummer. Amsterdam Will Close Its Weed Cafes to Tourists

May 31, 2011 at 2:45 PM | by | Comments (4)

Can you hear that? Stoners and wanna-be stoners everywhere are weeping and reaching for the nearest bag of Cheetos, to ease the sadness. Holland, home to Amsterdam and this, the weed-smoking capital of the world, will shut the doors of its cannabis cafes to tourists. By the end of the year, only Dutch residents will be able to enter pot-selling shops.

So if you were planning a trip to light up in Amsterdam, you'll have to find other means to get high. According to the Daily Mail, the new legislation is being called "tourism suicide," since it will cost the country millions of dollars each year in lost revenue.

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Charlie Sheen Vows to Fly Around the World Instead of Hitting Rehab

Where: Bahamas
February 25, 2011 at 9:31 AM | by | Comments (0)

So. Charlie Sheen owns a private jet. We'd of had no idea he did, except for today the big news is that he went and flew on it down to a "private tropical island near the Bahamas" to do his "rehab" with two porn stars and his soon-to-be ex-wife Brooke Mueller. Well, Brooke has already given up on Sheen and was spotted back at Miami Airport, while Sheen has talked his way into getting his whole show—Two and a Half Men—cancelled for the rest of the season. Oh, and he also managed to have a little private jet photoshoot before setting off.

Here's hoping customs & immigration makes a full sweep of that jet whenever he returns from his tropical departure, because they don't allow you to go on private island rehab if you're in jail.

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Auckland Airport Tests Full Body Scanners, But Not for Security's Sake

February 21, 2011 at 6:08 PM | by | Comments (0)

The US TSA has been famously unconcerned with traveler frustration over airport nudey scanners. In Britain, if you opt out of a full-body scanner, you don't even get to fly. There are some ins-and-outs to how the policies got made and why they stay the way they are, but mostly it's that security officials know that Americans and Europeans don't care about invasive searches and scanners.

Things are a little different in New Zealand, where there's legislation explicitly forbidding "naked imaging" in airports. Maybe it's because the culture is slightly more infused with machismo, or maybe travelers over there just have less patience for security theater than we do. In any case the ban is now creating some problems because New Zealand airport authorities want to introduce more advanced scanners into security checkpoints. They're not really interested in the extra security provided by the machines, though, as much as they want to catch drug smugglers.

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London's Heathrow Airport Was a Drug Smugglers' Paradise over Christmas

Where: London-Heathrow Airport, London, United Kingdom
January 3, 2011 at 4:19 PM | by | Comments (0)

Decisions at London's Heathrow airport sometimes get so inexplicably incompetent that they make us long for the famously exacting proficiency of the TSA. Worker strikes that legitimately threaten the medium-term economic viability of one of the world's financial hubs are just kind of a thing. When employees do show up for work, they're sometimes crippled by uniquely stupid regulations that grind travel to a halt for months at a time. And instead of fixing either the internal or external problems plaguing the facility, UK politicians have taken to complaining that airport officials don't have magical powers to control the weather.

Now news is coming out that airport security workers at Heathrow were short-staffed over Christmas and so were told - simply to speed things up - not "to actively seek to identify any passenger with internal concealments." In other words, they were told that time-consuming things like stopping drug mules and enforcing laws about the transportation of narcotics were just too much bother. Per the Daily Mail writeup on this stroke of genius, which went out to UK Border Agency officials on December 23rd, it "... would have allowed mules carrying Class A substances to stroll through the west London airport unhindered." There's a punchline here about how it was snowing in London over Christmas, but frankly we're too annoyed to make it.

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The Netherlands is Just Saying 'No' to Tourists Smoking Pot

November 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM | by | Comments (0)

A note to all those travelers (and gap year kids) who are hoping to spend the holidays and the turn to next year blazin' with legal marijuana in Amsterdam; your time for fun may be limited at the Dutch government looks to crack down on the sale of pot to tourists. It's all part of an effort to curb crime, reports Reuters, and also because the Netherlands just isnt' fond of their reputation as a hotspot for drug tourism and all the seediness that creates.

"The heart of the problem is crime and disturbances surrounding the sale. We have to go back to what it was meant for: local use for those who would like it," says Ivo Opstelten, the Minister of Public Safety and Justice.

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Will State Bans on Four Loko Mean Road Trips to Buy the Drink?

November 15, 2010 at 11:56 AM | by | Comments (0)

Four Loko is making state authorities go loco. The malted alcoholic drink, nicknamed "blackout in a can," has already been banned in Michigan, Washington, Oklahoma and Utah, and now New York is next to ban it. It was announced yesterday that shipments to New York stores will end at the beginning of next month, meaning that Four Loko fanatics will have to road trip outside of the state to score some.

To decide whether or not Four Loko is even worth the hype and worth the travel to buy some, we strolled into our local bodega this weekend and sampled three flavors of the fruity drink: Orange Blend, Watermelon and Cranberry Lemonade. Only a sip of each was enough; these things taste nasty and the obvious answer is no, they are not worth the hype or road tripping to buy them over state lines like they're illegal fireworks or something.

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Yelp's iPhone App Can Help You Score Some Good Weed

October 14, 2010 at 9:30 AM | by | Comments (0)

It might not be Amsterdam, but San Francisco is peppered with Cannabis Clinics...for medical purposes, of course. These are legitimate business in California and so why shouldn't they get listed like any other business is—on Yelp? As a matter of fact they are, a discovery we recently made while digging deeper into our Yelp iPhone app, where a category specifically for "Cannabis Clinics/Evaluations resides.

Searching around us in New York it finds nothing, but going to the other side of the country changes all of that. What's more is that Yelp reviewers actually take reviewing their favorite Cannabis clinics seriously. We've even learned a new word from this category: "budtender."

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Paris Hilton Just Got Denied Entry to Japan

Where: Tokyo, Japan
September 21, 2010 at 2:54 PM | by | Comment (1)

Japan is having a rough week with their celebrity travelers. First, the news spilled about Apple CEO Steve Jobs' alleged issue with transporting ninja stars through security and back home to the US on his private plane, and now Paris HIlton has been kept out of the country since just after touching down. Coincidentally, she was also traveling by private plane.

Japan doesn't have a problem with Paris so much as they do with her drug problem; the country is strict about letting in visitors with recent drug convictions, and it was only yesterday that she plead guilty in the case of the cocaine found in her possession during a stop in Las Vegas. Paris was headed to Japan with her sister Nicky, to promote their fashion line throughout Asia. Tokyo was to be first, followed by Indonesia and Malaysia, but after Japanese officials detained Paris at the airport and then refused her entry to the country, she was forced to strike Japan from the list. She's reportedly stuck in the airport's hotel until they can figure out what to do next.

We may not be private plane-flying millionaires with fashion and perfume deals to promote, but we have to say that it probably wasn't the best idea for Paris to fly out of the country so soon after pleading guilty on a serious charge. Oh well, she's Indonesia's problem right now.

[Photo: Paris Hilton's TwitPic]

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Lindsay Lohan's California Rehab Center Isn't the One with Surfing and Yoga

August 3, 2010 at 1:31 PM | by | Comments (0)

Lindsay Lohan may have been released from jail yesterday after serving only 2 weeks of her sentence, but it hasn't been smooth sailing for the actress since. Yesterday, she was ordered to go straight to rehab from jail (no stops at home) and instead of staying at the posh Morningside Recovery Center, she was sent to the UCLA Medical Center Rehab.

Apparently, Lindsay's drug of choice is methamphetamine, which she has been getting in the prescription form Desoxyn from various doctors around the country. The judge ordered LiLo to 90 days in rehab and claims to have made the last-minute switch to UCLA for "security reasons".

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