chollie

Yup. My pills weren't confiscated because they violated LGA rules.

Your last link is great: that's it, right there, confirms what I was told when my pills were confiscated and contradicts both <deleted>.

RadioGirl

I agree with everything you said except (with respect) you don't recall correctly.

Clear Care has 3% hydrogen peroxide which would sting if you put it in your eyes but is still far too weak for any explosive application. In other words, - like cupcakes, snow globes and nitroglycerin pills - it was banned because TSA's Imaginary Science Department decided someone could use it as a component in something nasty.

Mats

There was a separate thread about medications and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP announced a "crackdown" on prescription drugs for Global Entry members. Their press release said that passengers had to declare all prescription drugs any time they entered the United States.

This sounded absurd since 75 percent of the US population takes at least on prescription drug, and there is no question about prescription drugs in the Global Entry kiosks.

When I spoke to the CBP call center, I was told that this was indeed true, and it was the passenger's obligation to inform a CBP officer. I clarified further: did this mean birth control? Antihypertensives? Cholesterol-lower medication? Antiretrovirals? 15 grams of eczema cream? Yes to all.

I verified that this meant drugs prescribed and sold in the US in their original containers without an unusually large quantity.

The CBP representative said that this was an FDA law that CBP enforces.

So I asked the FDA. Their response was that this applied only to "scheduled drugs" (i.e. more tightly controlled drugs), and that one even had to the duty to report them upon departure. So this would mean that someone traveling with half a dozen Ambien (Schedule IV) would have to tell someone at the ticket counter, "I have Ambien in bag, so please call a CBP representative so that I may be in compliance with the law."

The TSA's involvement should really only apply to liquid medications that are to be declared separately if they do not fit in one's original "Kippie" bag. In other words, if you have a 120 mL bottle of Hydromet cough syrup, you can put it in a separate bag, it isn't subject to a quantity limit, as long as you let the TSA agent know that you have it.

None of these regulations make any sense to me at all. Although the liquid rules are idiotic in their own right, I'm comfortable with the TSA's policy of saying "you can bring it; just tell us." The involvement of the FDA and CBP is impossible to understand. If passengers followed the law, the bottlenecks at customs would be unthinkable.

I carry a handful of prescription drugs with me. And the last time I went through customs, I passed through the Global Entry checkpoint and just decided that the rules were too baffling, and there was no point in declaring small quantities of commonly-prescribed drugs.

I wrote to Airlines for America, both of my state's senators and my Congressional representative. The only reply I received was very kind; it was from a staffer with my Congressman, who said that they couldn't get a reply out of CBP, but they kept trying.

HIPAA doesn't apply here. It involves healthcare providers and agencies who bill third party insurers. But part of the spirit of HIPAA is patient privacy. Neither US Customs and Border Patrol nor the TSA should be questioning why any passenger is taking a medication, and conventional ethics suggest that they discuss any medications in a private fashion. But the TSA has never been known for its attention to privacy (they spent years looking at us naked).

petaluma1

Only goes to show that, yet again, within the government the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

petaluma1

Duplicate

petaluma1

Editing my post of last night with more "information"

If one enters "pills" into the "Can I Bring My......" box on the front page of the TSA website, one gets this:


One is given the opportunity to choose a type of pill.

I chose "heart pills" and, of course, was taken to the page that starts with:

Also take a look at how many variations there are on the list of "over the counter." A medicine is either "over the counter" or it's not. Why are there 4 or 5 variations on that theme?

Further, Tylenol is listed independently, but not Advil, Aleve or aspirin.

Looks like this list was devised by a committee.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I know I sound like a broken record on this issue, but I don't really care. As far as I am concerned this is proof positive that the TSA is totally incompetent.

WillCAD

The convoluted logic used to justify these insane policies works on most Americans. They've all got this ingrained Pavlovian response that "drugs=bad" and anything to do with "drugs", no matter how small, is equally bad. This, despite the prevalence of prescription drug overuse, abuse, and addiction, despite the prevalence of pot smokers, and despite the near-universal presence of alcohol - a presence so pervasive that the overwhelming majority of Americans don't even consider alcohol to be a drug at all.

I understand the government's logical progressions. They're almost entirely hyperbole, but I do follow them. They go something like this:

Prescription drugs are often illegally re-sold. Therefore, anyone who has prescription drugs on them is a potential drug dealer.

Prescription drug quantities are limited in the US, but the limits and controls are different in other countries, so they are often bought overseas and smuggled in for illegal resale. Therefore, anyone traveling with prescription drugs is a potential drug mule.

As we all know, the Evil Cartels in South America are in bed with al Quaeda, ISIS, Hamas, KAOS, SPECTRE, THRUSH, and Cobra, Venom, and the Decepticons.

Hence, if you have five oxycodone pills in your carry-on, you are potentially Osama bin Laden's buddy, out to destroy America. And in a bad way, not in the British "drink till we puke whilst watching American football!" way. So of course, you must be treated with the utmost suspicion when carrying even a few oxy.

Naturally, TSA, CBP, FBI, and FDA are not experts at identifying every illegal, evil pill in the world, so they require everyone to declare everything and believe nobody who honestly declares their prescription meds, because honesty is never more than a form of dishonesty designed to fool the Thin Blue Line that protects us from total annihilation.

Of course, that's just one line of logic. Another popular line of logic is this:

Drugs=bad. Therefore, anyone who sells, abuses, uses, travels with, possesses, talks about, thinks about, or can spell "drugs" also = bad.

If we're carrying contraband, we're criminals. If we're not carrying contraband, we're criminals who are good at hiding our contraband.

If we fail to cooperate, we're being highly uncooperative, which is suspicious. If we cooperate, we're being highly cooperative, which is suspicious.

Well, you get the picture. Basically, if you work for the government, everybody is bad, everybody is the enemy, you just haven't caught us all yet.

ubernostrum

And there's the answer:

The predecessor organizations for NOAA's Corps -- the Coast and Geodetic Survey, then the Coast Survey, then again the Coast and Geodetic Survey -- had to do a bit of a weird dance during the Civil War and then the war with Spain, since their skills as surveyors were useful but, as civilians, did run a real risk of being executed on the spot if captured.

The Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps was formed during WWI to solve this issue, and commissioned its members so that if captured they'd have to be treated as prisoners of war. Another world war and two name changes later, it's now the NOAA Corps, and all members are still commissioned for that reason.

The history of the Marine Hospital Service and its eventual morphing into the present-day PHS Corps is also why the US has a Surgeon General -- the first one, appointed by President Grant after the Civil War, pushed for the reorganization and commissioning of the members.

FliesWay2Much

The NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps comes in handy when a P-3 Hurricane Hunter flies close to Cuba while tracking a Caribbean storm.

Web sites:

NOAA Officer Corps
Uniformed Public Health Service

Since this board is about flying:

STBCypriot

If they do bother to note the anger, I'm sure they will continue to not care.