A family in Portland, Oregin in America’s Pacific Northwest is desperately trying to get their daughter out of a Japanese jail cell.  The young woman’s dream of teaching English has turned into a nightmare because of a prescription medication that turns out to be banned in Japan.

26-year old Carrie Russell lives with Attention Deficit Disorder and her doctor treats it with Adderall – a frequently prescribed drug in America, but not available in Australia and banned outright in Japan.  Russell didn’t know that, and neither did her family.  They shipped a three-month refill of her prescription to her, and all hell broke loose.

“Nobody can bring any medicine containing methamphetamine or amphetamine (Adderall and so on) into Japan,” says a document available from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, which is distributed through its diplomatic missions throughout the world.  “If you are found with any medicine containing methamphetamine or amphetamine illegally in Japan, you can be arrested as a criminal on the spot, immediately, without a warrant in principle.”

And that includes cases in which it’s as plain as day that no wrongdoing was intended.  Japanese law allows cops to detain her up to 23 days before charges are filed.

Police arrested Russell on 20 February, in front of her friends at a restaurant in Tokyo.  A US consular official and a lawyer hired by the family have visited Russell at a women’s detention center in Nagoya.  They have told the family that Russell has been held in solitary confinement and subjected to numerous interrogations.

Members of the Oregon congressional delegation were reported to have intervened without success.