A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison.

Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai's main airport.

A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.

Dubai International Airport is a major hub for the Middle East and thousands of Britons pass through it every year to holiday in the glamorous beach and shopping haven.

But many of those tourists and business travelers are likely to be unaware of the strict zero-tolerance drugs policy in the UAE.

One man has even been jailed for possession of three poppy seeds left over from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow Airport. Painkiller codeine is also banned.

If suspicious of a traveler, customs officials can use high-tech equipment to uncover even the slightest trace of drugs.

Mr Brown was detained and arrested in September last year and has been held in a cell with three other men in the city prison ever since.

This week the youth worker, who has two young children and a partner at home in Smethwick, West Midlands, was sentenced to four years in prison.

A 25-year-old Briton who was found with a similar speck in one pocket as he arrived on holiday has been awaiting sentence since November.

Meanwhile a Big Brother TV executive has so far been held without charge for five days after being arrested for possessing the health supplement melatonin.

The authorities claim to have discovered 0.01g of hashish in his luggage.

Last night Mr Brown's brother Lee said his case "defied belief".

"For that sort of amount common sense should prevail, from where it was found it was obviously something that had been crushed on the floor - it could have come from anywhere."

Rastafarian Mr Brown had been returning from a short trip to Ethiopia, where one of his children lives and where he owns property.

He was travelling with his partner Imani, who was also stopped and detained for more than a week.

Normally he flew direct to and from the UK, but decided to stop off in Dubai.

"He was incensed when he called me," said driving instructor Lee, 57. "It would be funny if the circumstances weren't so unpleasant.

"Bugs are crawling out of his mattress when he's sleeping. His family are frantic with worry and can't call him."

Last night campaign group Fair Trials International advised visitors to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to "take extreme caution".

Chief Executive Catherine Wolthuizen said: "We have seen a steep increase in such cases over the last 18 months.

"Customs authorities are using highly sensitive new equipment to conduct extremely thorough searches on travellers and if they find any amount - no matter how minute - it will be enough to attract a mandatory four-year prison sentence."

Mrs Wolthuizen added: "We even have reports of the imprisonment of a Swiss man for 'possession' of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow

"What many travellers may not realise is that they can be deemed to be in possession of such banned substances if they can be detected in their urine or bloodstream, or even in tiny, trace amounts on their person."

Only two months after Mr Brown was stopped economics graduate Robert Dalton was detained in almost identical circumstances.

Mr Dalton, from Gravesend, on Kent was with two friends when he was stopped and asked to empty his pockets.

Officials found 0.03g of cannabis in a small amount of fluff. He is currently on trial and if convicted, is likely receive a four-year prison sentence.

Last night his brother Peter, 26, told how it took 24 hours to find out why he had been stopped.

"As we understand, the amount of cannabis was barely visible to the human eye and was at the bottom of the pocket of an old pair of jeans.

"He's not a drug user, but he goes clubbing and the speck was so small."

Last week Cat Le-Huy, a London-based German national, was arrested on arrival at the airport.

Mr Le-Huy, 31, head of technology with Big Brother production company Endemol, was arrested on suspicion of possessing illegal drugs after customs officers found melatonin, a health supplement used for jet lag available over the counter both in Dubai and in the US.

Authorities also claim they discovered fragments in one of his bags which they believe to be hashish. Fair Trials International said the amount was 0.01g.

damn homie

source?

source?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23436226-details/Briton+jailed+in+Dubai+after+officials+find+cannab is+weighing+less+than+a+grain+of+sugar+under+his+s hoe/article.do

http://www.totse.com/community/showthread.php?t=2098881

Thats fuckin crazy. I learned about that place in a Travel and Tourism class and it looked pretty amazing and was like some country size fantasy world. But i never knew they were so serious about their drug laws. Wonder what you would get with even 1 gram.

def deserved it, shoulda known better/was asking for it!!

This is already a thread in IFOTW.

i believe an Oz would warrant the same exact punishment as .0001 gram

personally, i wanted to see BLTC's reaction

you probably do too

Fucking uptight sandniggers.

"The authorities claim to have discovered 0.01g of hashish in his luggage."



Because this totally justifies it all...

Edit: quoted the complete wrong thing...

Man just imagine being locked away from your wife and kids for 4 years so suddenly for the stupidest goddamn reason on the fucking planet, hell how would they know if it wasn't just floating around in the air and happened to land on him? Fucking sand niggers.

Also, just imagine how awful that prison probably is....

I read about that a while back, I tossed their tourism office an email about it. They are always advertising about Dubai here, so I thought I'd let them know that things like are not going to get people wanting to come there.

info@dubaitourism.ae

Never got a response.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developments_in_Dubai

They are spending 10's (100s?) of billions of dollars there in crazy developments. They are trying to change over their economy from one based on oil to tourism when world oil runs out in 2050 or so. Once the funding runs out, I'm pretty sure these structures will fall into disrepair and tourism will come from urban explorers who come to see decaying structures.

This is too funny/stupid to be true. "Customs authorities are using highly sensitive new equipment to conduct extremely thorough searches on travellers and if they find any amount - no matter how minute" I'd like more information about this 'equipment', this just sounds like a bullshit excuse to accuse him, they probably saw him as the stoner type and decided to make up evidence to get an arrest.

They are spending 10's (100s?) of billions of dollars there in crazy developments. They are trying to change over their economy from one based on oil to tourism when world oil runs out in 2050 or so. Once the funding runs out, I'm pretty sure these structures will fall into disrepair and tourism will come from urban explorers who come to see decaying structures.

Yeah, I guess they'll all ride their intercontinental segways there.

Nuke that shit hole:)

"Note to self, NEVER GO TO Dubai International Airport"

Wonder what you would get with even 1 gram.


Death Sentence.. lol

Fucking uptight sandniggers.

Wow yeah I could never go there. I bet there is .0001 g of cannabis on ALL my clothing. What bullshit I heard those sandniggers arrested some kid for being gay because he got buttraped too.

Fucking hell that's crazy, we have harsh laws in Italy but still one time they stopped me at the airport and I had hash and tobacco in one of my backpack's pockets from a spliff that had opened during a concert and that I never bothered cleaning.

The cop just smelled it and told me to be more careful next time and let me go, there might have been easily half a gram of hash still in there.

Fucking uptight sandniggers.

QFMFT.

yeah that sucks. who really cares though? after all, its not like anyone here is ever going to go to dubai for any reason, ever. its just another reason not to

It just takes one time...whether it be some exploring the world or switching planes for those sand niggers to sandnap you!!!