Why I think I'll avoid the United Arab Emirates

An interesting piece of news caught my eye this week – tourists are being warned of tough drug laws in the United Arab Emirates.
This is the only country that I have ever been to in the Middle East, and even then I only saw the airport as I was in transit between Singapore and London. I can remember how the cabin crew told us to leave our hand luggage on the plane to avoid any problems when re-boarding.
Maybe now I understand why – the article describes how people have been sentenced for having minute amounts of cannabis stuck to their shoes. Other had prescription medicines with them.
The one that really makes me shudder is the man traveller who had poppy seeds on his clothes from a bread role that he had eaten and was sentenced to four years in jail!
It all makes me want to stay away from that country.  But wait – only today I read that Germany has a similar situation.  Apparently eating three pieces of poppy seed cake is sufficient to fail a roadside drugs test, resulting in the loss of your driving license.
I think I’ll stick to cheese cake!

 

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About Graham

Graham Tappenden is a British ex-pat who first came to Germany as a placement student in 1993, returning in 1995 to live there permanently. He has been writing for AllThingsGerman.net since 2006. When not writing blog posts or freelancing for the Oberurseler Woche and other publications he works as a self-employed IT consultant solving computer problems and designing websites. In 2016 he gained German citizenship.

Comments

  1. Reading this makes me glad we decided to fly with Nippon Airways to Japan instead of with the Emirates.
    With the Emirates going there would have taken 21 hours but returning a very long 31 hours. Just think of how much trouble one could get into during such long lay-overs…..

  2. thanks much, man

Trackbacks

  1. Anonymous says:

    Warum ich nicht in den Emiraten einreisen m

  2. […] Why I think I’ll avoid the United Arab EmiratesAn interesting piece of news caught my eye this week – tourists are being warned of tough drug laws in the United Arab Emirates. This is the only country that I have ever been to in the Middle East, and even then I only saw the airport … […]

  3. […] Why I think I’ll avoid the United Arab EmiratesAn interesting piece of news caught my eye this week – tourists are being warned of tough drug laws in the United Arab Emirates. This is the only country that I have ever been to in the Middle East, and even then I only saw the airport … […]

  4. […] Why I think I’ll avoid the United Arab EmiratesAn interesting piece of news caught my eye this week – tourists are being warned of tough drug laws in the United Arab Emirates. This is the only country that I have ever been to in the Middle East, and even then I only saw the airport … […]

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