"A 26-year-old Oregon woman named Carrie Russell—arrested in Japan after her mother sent her prescription Adderall—has been released after 18 days in custody. United States officials including Oregon senator Ron Wyden and Japan ambassador Caroline Kennedy had campaigned for Russell's release; the American was waiting to start a job teaching English when she was detained after receiving pills that her mother had packed, unwisely, in an unmarked container. Writes The Oregonian: "Amphetamines have a sinister reputation in Japan, where the lucrative black-market trade is controlled by the Yakuza, the country's main organized-crime syndicate." Russell, who has been reuinted with her family and will return to Oregon, said the detention facility where she was held was "clean" and "not anything terrifying" and that she would be happy to travel to Japan in the future." - Jessie

I wonder if her teaching group didn't tell her, or she didn't understand, but I remember one of my friends having to get documentation for two of her medications before heading over there in the early 2000's. The paperwork from her employer had a bunch of warnings about that. - Jennifer Dittrich

They may not have if she contracted directly with the school instead of through an agency. In Beijing, an expat friend of mine at Tsinghua said the university never told her to ship packages to her office instead of her apartment, which most people did when they didn't have a mailbox or house number. The package of Adderall her mom sent is probably still floating around Beijing somewhere. - Jessie