dog poo vs. customs

no matter how much you train a drug dog, a dog loves the smell of dog poo.

while in seattle for 36 hours, i managed to step on some dog poo prior to flying to japan. japan has harsh drug laws. in customs at kansai airport in osaka, while waiting for your checked bags, there is a repeated message in english that says "drugs are not allowed into the country. we have dog detectors for smelling drugs" or something close to that. (it sorta sounds like they say dog addicts...). on my way through, a drug dog took a sniff of my shoe and must have given the "that mans got drugs in his baggage" sign or some shit because at quarintine they asked to search my bags. first, they pulled out some laminated pieces of paper with pictures of a variety of drugs and asked if i had any of them. as opposed to the normal quarrantine search, where they empty your bags at the customs desk in the open, friendlyish environment that is customs at any airport, they took me to a room that was down a long hallway across from a bunch of sinks. this room was occupied with sterile stainless steel benches, curtains, and a few other customs officers wearing white gloves. they spoke english, slighly.

after emptying my pockets completely and removing my shoes, the customs officer frisked me with no shame. they then emptied my bags and found sand and lint in the pockets, which they got excited about and put the "samples" onto a tray. they asked me what it was, and i told them it was probably sand because it looked mostly like sand. they also found a old gum wrapper with a brown stain on it. brown is, as i saw from the pictures of heroin, a common color for heroin. they asked me what it was, i told them it looked like a coffee stain (to which, after translating, laughed and tossed it aside). they then found an empty plastic bag that had white powder in it. i could not for the life of me remember what this bag previously contained (i haven't cleaned my backpack out in a while). they always asked to search and open new things, which is very polite, but in all reality probably just a ploy to see how i react because you don't have any rights in customs. you are in national purgatory. they did like my gameboy color though.

in came another few officers with white gloves, vials of liquids, more laminated paper and some trays. a female officer took one of the laminated pages, which had multiple colors and the opposite of english, and told me in a very happy and cheery voice (very counter to the situation) that if the test on the sand turned either of the colors on the page that the substance was marijuana. nothing happened because, well, it very clearly was not marijuana. (keep in mind, these tests take some time and, just like when cops drive behind you on the highway, even if you know you're innocent you still feel guiltier than shit). the second test was on the unknown white substance. the officer showed me a larger laminated page with about 50 colors laid out in a tree diagram, saying that if it turns any of these colors the substance is illegal. i then realized what the bag had held. i've had many prescriptions for painkillers throughout my life thanks to surgeries, injuries, etc... this bag had previously held some vicodin. the particular vidodin was 500mg acetometaphine and 5mg hydrocodone. hydrocodone is an opiate, a synthetic opium-like substance, or, much closer in chemical structure to heroin without being heroin than just about any other unknown white substance could be. i'm already a cracker, but im pretty sure i was as white as the powder they were checking. luckily it came up false. either they don't check for hydrocodone, or it was in a small enough quantity given that hydrocodone is at most 1% of the powder, but probably less due to inactive fillers used on pills.

while packing up my belongings, one of the officers asked if i had a dog at home, i said yes, and he laughed. they then told me to enjoy my stay in japan.