Buffett Busted!!!

[DrRalph]

from Artist Direct (http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/news/article/0,,3820004,00.html):

Maybe the margaritas just aren't strong enough anymore for Jimmy Buffett (http://www.artistdirect.com/music/artist/card/0,,409607,00.html). The 59-year-old singer-songwriter was detained by French customs officials earlier this week when more than 100 hits of ecstacy were found in his luggage.

Despite the size of the stash, Buffett was reportedly only briefly detained, fined only 300 Euros -- about $380 -- and released. The pills were confiscated.

When news of the bust first reached the American media, the "Margaritaville" singer's representatives were quick to dispute the details as reported in the French media. A spokeswoman for Buffett insisted that the pills seized were not ecstacy but "prescription medication," though she declined to specify what the medication was or what is was for. She also offered no explanation for why Buffett agreed to pay the fine if the pills were legal.

Buffett's latest album, Take the Drugs With You -- oops, sorry, that's Take the Weather With You -- is due out next week on RCA Records.

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
10.06.06

[BA]

WHAT HAPPENED? A MESSAGE FROM JIMMY BUFFETT
I have tried over the years, to live below the radar when it comes to the "celebrity" thing. I see what I do as just a job, a really fun job that has opened the world, its people and places. However, I seem to still have a way of causing commotion now and then.
In Toulon, we arrived at the private terminal to leave and were moving through security, when my captain informed me that we were being ramp checked by French customs and some plainclothes guys. This is nothing new but what was strange was that the search was being conducted as we were leaving - not as we were arriving. No big deal - I thought. I found my bag and opened it up and they went right for a little pouch which contained my prescription medicines which was sitting on top of my clothes, not the most secretive part of my bag. I don't know about you, but at a few months away from turning sixty, I carry a few prescriptions, including a B vitamin supplement, called Foltx.
Well, that's the one that deflated the party balloon for when they examined them you could see a heart on the pill. "Ecstasy," they said. I have never taken it and couldn't tell you the difference between a hit of ecstasy and Excedrin PM. My vices these days consist of boat drinks, beer, wine and the occasional hot fudge sundae. I hadn't even opened the bottle, because my secretary had made a mistake and had sent the wrong prescription. I don't use Foltx any more.
I knew Foltx was a vitamin supplement not a love drug. I paid the fine, gathered my bags and my friends and as soon as they opened that door, I walked, rather rapidly towards my plane and flew out.
In Toulon, the stern faced authorities couldn't take the truth as the simple answer to a few simple questions, trying to turn vitamins into ecstasy. In these days and times, the truth sadly gets lost in the gossip at an alarming rate.
In the end, I will just chalk it up as being something that will happen if you have an adventurous soul and live a nomad life. I will, as my old hero Mark Twain put it, be "lighting out into the territory". The great old humorist Lord Richard Buckley used to say in one of his routines that humor is the absence of terror and that terror is the absence of humor. It seems there are too many people in the world intent on building fences, not bridges between cultures and fueling misinformation with heightened suspicions and senseless interrogations. I never was, nor do I ever intend to answer to or become one of those people. I will take my cue from Lord Buckley and keep on singing and laughing. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Jimmy Buffett
Over the Atlantic and on the way home


All he has to do is sell a couple of those blenders to make up for the fine he had to pay! :D

[AbacoBoy]

Just judging from the other headlines in your "ArtistDirect" news magazine, they sound like another National Enquirer. Would you quote them with any seriousness? I hope not.

Why would you try and do that to the man that practically invented the thing that lots of us try to do...enjoy palm trees, warm weather, music, and an occasional cool drink to celebrate.

AB

[SamFamAustin]

LOL, I've had trouble when travelling too. The doc put me on blood pressure medication so I pack that everywhere ... it has been ID'd as Viagra, Exstacy, Xanax, and all kind of creepy things. Don't be like me and put some aspirin and Rolaids in with your pills because that really makes them suspicious! One airline lost my bags one time - why do they send everything to Newark? - but I got pretty good service by calling every few hours and saying "I'm dying ... slipping away ... please help ... save me ... I need my meds ... oh Lord here it comes again!" The gurggling sounds really help. :eek:
-Sam

[DrRalph]

I am as big a Buffett fan as any of you are. He's gotten me through a divorce, several hangovers, some big-time surgery, and a lot of long-distance driving. But....

Why would he be searched on departure, as opposed to arrival? How did the agents know where to look? He doesn't deny that the incident occurred, just that the pills weren't "Ecstasy." Who would pay a 300-Euro fine for vitamin pills? Why weren't the "vitamins" in a labeled container?

I heard the report on the radio, Goolged it, and several references came up. I used the first one, there were plenty more. Consider this a useful warning: don't travel with illegal drugs, and have your prescription drugs in their labeled containers.

[coolchik]

I just googled Foltx and Ecstasy Heart. Both have a heart shape on them. Sounds like the prescription bottles were in a pouch.

Better to pay the fine and get out of Dodge.

[PattyB]

Provocative questions, Ralph. Do you carry all your meds and supplements in original containers? I don't. I fill a pill minder with what I need, stick Rx labels on a slip of paper, and put both in a zip bag. Before I needed the meds, I just tossed enough vitamins in a baggie to last for my stay. I keep the Rx labels handy, in the event of emergency. Abruptly stopping my Rx's could be life threatening. I never gave it a thought, until now. I suppose I could be busted, too.


As far as paying the fine, you do what is asked to avoid detention in a foreign country. My foster daughter visited family in Israel when she was 17. Upon leaving, it was noted that she would turn 18 in a few short weeks. She was not allowed to leave without either serving her time in the army as an Israeli, or signing papers stating that she would NEVER ask anything from the Israeli government. Guess what she did?

[SamFamAustin]

Hey DrRalph is a doctor, rght? He ought to have some good advice about how to keep us old-timers from getting caught by our own carelessness when travelling. :cool:

Might help the youngsters, too. /Sammy

[DrRalph]

So we're all getting older, we take more meds, we're on prescription plans, they send us large bottles with 3-month supplies. It comes time for a little trip down island, we don't have room for all the pill bottles (each one has the prescription info printed on it, along with your name and physician, very official and legally required), so we throw them in a baggy or pill minder, finish packing, and blast off.

Fast-forward to Customs in Wherever, you happen to get an agent who got up on the wrong side of bed or doesn't like your looks, he goes through your stuff, finds the baggie, holds up a pill and says, "What is this?" You gulp, stammer, then, "It's Tylenol, I have back pain." And he says, "It looks a lot like Vicodan to me." And you look at it closely and go, "Oh yeah, I'm mixed up, it is Vicodan, for when my back pain gets really bad." And he says, "Where is your prescription?"

Now, you may be able to talk you way out of it, or you may wind up paying 300 Euros, or possibly worse. At the very least, give heavy consideration to carrying your controlled substances, analgesics, Xanax, whatever, in their labeled containers, so you don't have to deal with a scenario like this.

[BA]

Perhaps the agent was just trying to get his own version of "Jamaica Mistaica???"
Too late for the new album, of course - but maybe a single in time for next summer's tours....
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/5/5_2_2.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZN)"Come back, come back, back to Toulon! Don't you know we made a big faux pas! We'd be so sad, if you told us au revoir....."






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