Given the minor but real amount of 'medical tourism', as well as the fact that people do lose or have prescriptions stolen overseas, I can see situations where someone might be landing in the US, clearing customs with a US drug acquired overseas and in a bad position if CBP elected to confiscate the drug.

I have had this happen - dangerous infection in Japan, got prescribed antibiotics just before coming home. US drugs, almost 24 hours between touching down on US soil and getting home where I could go to an ER and eventually replace the drug if it had been confiscated. All while a raging infection is running unchecked. It would not have been a good scenario.

Fortunately for me, I don't recall any place on the blue paper form that required me to declare all meds. I didn't, continued to take my meds, beat the infection and survived.

http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinforma.../ucm125789.htm

They aren't staffed to deal with a lot of export certification for non-commercial quantities for export; even the export certification for experimental items isn't always so quick. But it could well be that the certification is for purposes required not by the US but by the product destination authorities.

While it would be CBP taking physical custody of the drug, it would be FDA that would be the agency seizing it. CBP would only do it after consultation with FDA. It is a small distinction but it is a very different thing.

That being said, the feeling that I am getting from reading the guidance and various memos is neither agency is really interested and will use discretion in cases such as you are describing above. It appears commercial quantity is the concern.

FB

It may be low priority, but I try to follow laws and procedures as they are written, not according to whether or not they're likely to be enforced.

I do not want to be in the position of admitting to a CBP officer that I knew (from an IBB, the information is not exactly common knowledge) certain rules and disregarded them. Not that it matters: I know ignorance of the law is no excuse.

If I am prescribed medication overseas again (it has happened before, although not as critical as in Japan), I will most certainly insist that I am only prescribed non-US manufactured drugs. It isn't worth taking the risk.

Re-read the guidance. You would also not be allowed to import the non-US manufactured drugs into the United States either, under most circumstances.

FB

That's certainly my impression, both in terms of the use of discretion and their interest in commercial quantities.

I've had to get prescription drugs abroad for medical problems, and occasionally have brought them home in small quantities just because they were cheaper there than off-drug-plan here and the drug plan limited my quantities.

I have always declared prescription drugs acquired abroad*, and never had a problem. The most questions I've ever gotten have been "what's ____?" "they're for allergies" or "that's an antibiotic" and a quick glance that the package matched what I wrote down, and never so much as that since getting GE.

In practice from what I can see, if one has you have a small quantity for personal use, in one's possession at the checkpoint, and it is a prescription drug that is not scheduled... if you declare it, customs isn't going to be interested in much about it, let alone asking where it's manufactured.

(* which are often OTC there, or effectively so. )

My 2c: the zero-tolerance penalty in the OP was in relation to the specific travellers and while the "zero tolerance" message is clearly intended to be an example to everyone that we should not play fast and loose with our GE, I don't think we are intended to interpret the news release as signalling a change of policy to include all Rx.

Personally, I find the CBP page adequately clear, if I am not trying to read things that are not there.

In regards to medication, it says
If my Rx are not in those categories, I see nothing here to compel me to go out of my way to find an CBP person to take my confession.

Further, the same page says
(comment: it's not clear how foreign travellers to the USA are supposed to comply with this, yet it is implausible that we are meant not to travel to the USA or to leave medically necessary Rx behind.)

The OP references cancellation of GE privileges for three U.S. citizen travellers who had
If they were having a crackdown on ALL Rx carried by ALL US and foreign travellers, then as has been posted, there would be a heck of a lot more than three cases, since the majority of the population requires one or more Rxs during a typical trip, and there clearly isn't a general trend by either GE users or regular travellers to declare them. (Otherwise, we wouldn't be so alarmed or surprised.)

The fact that the press release mentions the >$10,000 currency also suggests that the specific travellers were being penalized for the currency, and for the sake of completeness and making them an example to others, every other violation was added on. As the release is vague about the "steroids and prescription medications" could be medications that violate the second quoted passage and not, say, a single bottle of Flonase for seasonal allergic rhinitis.

In my NEXUS interview, I too was told to declare as little as a handful of gummy bears, with the result that I just don't carry food unless I am prepared to declare it and take the big O ticket to secondary.

However, I don't think there is anything to be gained by reading something into this that's not there. After all, on the topic of "soil", they say
Do we need to declare the mud in the treads of our running shoes? Of course not.

Indeed, although I believe stuff that you might track back is part of the reason for the "or have you visited a farm/ranch/pasture outside the United States?" part of the question (wording from the form, not GE kiosk, although IIRC the kiosk wording is similar.)

Unfortunately, the CBP contact center contradicts the web site. They state that all prescription drugs (Flonase included) must be declared. Again, it's not clear to whom one makes this declaration for Global Entry passengers.

Very true that it's probably the intent of that question, but the website is clear that ALL dirt, not minimal quantities or only dirt from certain sources, is to be not just declared but authorized on a permit. Yet nobody reads it that way. They apply reason.

It is not reasonable that everyone would spontaneously pick up the phone to call the CBP contact centre and ask this question unprompted, while the CBP has posted certain very specific information online. Since the call centre person is not there at the border and the webpage is, I am going with the web page. As you say, there is no "appropriate CBP official" there to whom to declare.

I appreciate people will choose to err on the side of caution, and I hope they do keep us all posted.

Based on prior actual interactions with CBP, I would declare (or at least talk to someone at the customs station while waiting for checked bags, to ask whether they want it declared) all drugs acquired abroad -- down to Flonase.

I have not in the past, and would not bother to declare US-labelled items that left the US with me in personal use quantities, unless they're scheduled.

I was wondering for that even with food given the more specific "fruit, meat" wording; barring more specific guidance I'd just bringing the GE card plus a customs declaration to the customs line and ask them how they want it handled. I can't imagine them sending back to passport control.

I think this is relatively new - hence the highly publicized 'zero tolerance' incidents. In my recent experience, they're still working out how to handle it.

How else to explain that in ORD, I answered 'yes' to food, declared a box of chocolates to the customs agent, and got sent to the agricultural station to get my bags x-rayed? I guess they could have been looking for undeclared Kinder Eggs on the x-ray, but at the ag station, they never even asked me what I had and (lucky for me) seemed to be tearing everyone else's bags apart but let me go unchallenged after the xray.

So in my recent trip, I declared food since it says food on the form.

The CBP guy looked at me like I was crazy. He's like, "I'm going to have to speak with the people who made this form."

Alphaod,
I think that CBP officers may end up being allies in this case.

To date, I've contacted both senators, my congressional representative, the CEO of the Port of Seattle, and Airlines for America. Nobody responded.

Even if I was told "we don't control this," or "not much we can do," I would have preferred some sort of response.

I can't think of anyone else to contact.

Maybe you should have also contacted the airline(s) on which you fly regularly--on second thought write to ALL of them.:rolleyes:
If GE gets to the point that you have to go through EXCEPTIONAL "hoops" to get clearance (or fear that a minor infraction of their "zero tolerance" policy will get you kicked out of the program) something is wrong with the program (IMHO).:)