this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
55 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36210 readers
1272 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I tossed them in a ziploc but idk that looks mad suspicious, just 10 little white pills in a ziploc

top 24 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 67 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I'm gonna chime in: Last time I checked for an international flight, they said you're not allowed to carry unmarked pills. It has to be in the original packaging including that leaflet. If you don't do that, you might be in for an interesting day.

And if you're travelling abroad: Check if that OTC medication is also OTC in the destination country.

[–] dhork 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Airport security, particularly in the US where many airports have international and domestic departures out of the same terminal, will not care about that. I regularly travel with OTC pills loose in a container and no documentation, and have had no issues.

Where you might encounter problems is on entering that foreign country. While they have never ever given me grief over my OTC medicines, I try to make sure to remember to buy stuff in original packaging to bring. But even then, as long as you are only bringing enough for your trip they probably won't care. Prescription medicines should absolutely be in original containers, though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's real hit or miss. I've had TSA search through my daughters bag of Goldfish looking for stuff in a podunk little airport while I'm rushed through in busier international airports.

[–] dhork 9 points 4 months ago

Ah, the smaller airports are probably worse, because they don't have much to do and have to justify the investment in all the fancy machines.

[–] thesohoriots 3 points 4 months ago

Example of note: France won’t sell Sudafed, so bringing any might be a risk unless you have a printed and signed rx. That being said, their pharmacies are pretty good. Shoutout to the migraine medication with codeine in it.

[–] kikutwo 35 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Leave them in the original container.

[–] TragicNotCute 9 points 4 months ago

This is the right answer. It’s worth noting I traveled domestically and internationally quite a bit lately and I carry prescribed and controlled meds loose in a container. I carry maybe 6 pills total and no one has ever cared or asked about them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I just didn't wanna bring a whole bottle, I have extremely limited luggage space (just a personal item lol (a backpack))

[–] kikutwo 6 points 4 months ago

Then don't worry about it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Bring an old bottle you’re going to throw away anyway and still bring the ziplock. Use it to go through security. Once at destination, transfer to the ziplock. Works only one way, though.

[–] themeatbridge 23 points 4 months ago

They're not looking for your ten pills, even if they were a controlled substance. It's best to bring them in the original packaging, but they have reference guides to check the stamp and color of the pills if they question it, but they probably won't even look twice at them. If you had a full gallon ziplock full of pills, they would check them out.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

In their blisters.

That said, airport security aren't cops, they care about bombs, not about drug, most likely, it's too much work for them to care about some pills. Custom might be more of an issue

[–] yesman 10 points 4 months ago

If you don't have space for the retail bottle, take a photos of the bottle so that the drug name, usage instructions, and expiry are visible. (a photo of the pills themselves is good too) Print these photos out and keep them in the bag with the pills.

This is a good idea for more than just security.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

If you're going on an international flight find a way to bring the original bottle so customs doesn't find an issue with it. For just airport security though you could maybe transfer them to a smaller bottle of some kind they almost certainly won't dig through your bag to find them.

If you're going to an airport that only uses metal detectors not those fancy body scanners you can just put them in your pocket.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

TSA don't get paid enough to care. A million people travel with drugs every day. As long as TSA don't believe your stuff can be used to hurt others, they probably won't bother.

[–] marshadow 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A pill organizer, if the original containers are too large (or too numerous) to be practical. I've only flown domestic USA, but security has never bothered me about it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

yeah the TSA website says that it doesn't matter how you take them idk just got me stressing lol

[–] tyrant 3 points 4 months ago

If it's a simple otc med, maybe just grab a small bottle once you get to destination.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Least suspicious would probably be in whatever package they come in. When I travel with my family, we do usually bring most meds in a zip lock bag and we've had zero issues so far though. Anyway it doesn't typically matter, assuming the meds are not restricted in the country you're going to. I wouldn't expect many OTC meds would be.

[–] clif 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I've been carrying around multiple little baggies of pills in my backpack for years and over 20+ flights, several international, they've never asked.

Some are separated but loose in the bag (ibuprofen, cetirizine, diphenhydramine, from a bottle), and some were trimmed to minimum size from a blister pack and placed in the bag.

They focus a lot more closely on my headphones, charging cables, battery packs, etc.

So whatever is most convenient for you, in my opinion.

EDIT: they didn't flag my epinephrine auto injectors (see: needles) either the three or four times I forgot to put them in the bin separately. Granted, those were domestic US flights.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

When I flew in May I put all of my pills in one bottle. I had my allergy meds, anti-diarrhea pills, and ibuprofen. Nothing was said about it going through security.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Get one of those daily pill thingumies and put 2 pills per day m-f and ur golden

[–] geomela 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm trying to work out if your hypothetical pill holder only has five days or you're calling OP a motherfucker.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Nah nah nah the pill holder has 7 days for the week, Sunday- Saturday. Op only needs to load up m-f with 2 pills each to reasonably smuggle them through customs.