• Australia
• importation
• drug

As an ex-hippy and child of the 60s I had, in keeping with Bill Clinton and many Labour MPs, an early interest in plant pharmacology. I was, therefore, destined to become either a botanist or a pharmacologist, but instead, ended up as a clinical pharmacologist and latterly as a cardiologist. My interest in drugs is now, therefore, evidence based and ongoing, and until now has been on the right side of the law. Like my peers I took MRCP part I as part of my right of passage to higher things, so you would have thought that I was used to ticking the right box. Evidently not!

I recently travelled to Australia, as part of an ongoing collaboration with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of New South Wales Australia, and as such was carrying a number of pharmaceutical grade drugs. It is a trip I have made a number of times before without incident. I guess I should have been forewarned that this trip may be different when I arrived at check in to find my electronic visa was …