Hillsboro physician Jill Russell never imagined a problem would result from mailing a refill of Adderall Jan. 6 to her daughter, Carrie, in South Korea. 
 
 Carrie Russell also expected no trouble when she in turn shipped the medication routinely prescribed by U.S. doctors for attention deficit disorder to Nagoya, Japan, where she planned to teach English. 
 
 But at 11 p.m. on Feb. 20, according to Russell's Portland-area family, five plain-clothed police officers in black suits burst into a Tokyo restaurant where the 26-year-old American was dining with friends. They took her into custody. She was taken 275 miles west to Nagoya, where she was incarcerated in a women's detention center outside the city. 
 
 Russell, a 2012 Western Oregon University graduate, remains in jail on suspicion of smuggling amphetamines into Japan. A U.S. consular official and a Nagoya lawyer, hired by family members, have visited her. They've told the family that Russell has been held in solitary confinement and subjected to numerous interrogations. 
 
 "We're left in a state of disbelief," said John Russell, Carrie's father, who teaches at a Portland elementary school. "We would never imagine something like this assaulting us from a civilized country like Japan." 
 
 As Carrie Russell's family members work frantically for her release, her predicament serves as a warning for Americans traveling abroad. Medication routinely prescribed in the United States can be illegal in other countries, with serious consequences for possession. 
 
 Russell's case also highlights differing U.S. and Japanese systems of criminal justice and drug enforcement, as well as contrasting attitudes toward mental health and treatment. 
 
 In hindsight, warnings against bringing Adderall into Japan show up on the Internet. But they're difficult to find, and veteran international travelers are often unaware of foreign laws that criminalize commonly prescribed U.S. medications 
 
 A traveler who scoured the Internet would find Adderall specifically cited in a parenthetical clause partway through one of several documents linked to an import-restrictions page on the Web site of the Consulate General of Japan in Seattle. 
 
 "Nobody can bring any medicine containing methamphetamine or amphetamine (Adderall and so on) into Japan," the document says. "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." 
 
 Unwittingly, from all indications, Russell has run afoul of a hidden world of criminal gangs, drug abusers, police and jails seldom encountered even by long-term foreign residents of Japan. 
 
 During World War II, the Japanese government gave amphetamines to soldiers and arms-factory workers. They used the stimulants, known as speed, to remain on duty for long hours. 
 
 After Japan's defeat, looters broke into military depots, stealing and selling large amounts of amphetamines. Japanese used them to suppress hunger during early days of the U.S. Occupation. In the 1950s, Japan outlawed amphetamines. The Yakuza, Japan's main organized-crime syndicate, muscled into the lucrative black market, which it still controls. 
 
 Amphetamines remain the illicit drugs of choice in fast-paced Japan, partly because authorities have managed until recently to keep out many other illegal substances common in the West. White-collar workers use speed to toil long hours. Students take it to pull all-nighters. Truck drivers rely on it to stay awake. 
 
 Illicit Adderall is common as well in the United State, where college students take it to get through exams. But U.S. doctors find the medication effective for treating attention deficit disorder. 
 
 In Japan, arrested amphetamine addicts have often ended up in psychiatric hospitals resembling jails. A 1996 ABC Australia documentary reported that many inmates were heavily sedated and given shock therapy. 
 
 Mental illness is stigmatized more in Japan than in other countries, according to Japanese researchers. While awareness is growing, mental conditions often go undiagnosed. Ritalin, the other main drug used in the West to treat attention deficit disorder, was banned in 2007 by Japanese government officials who cited widespread abuse. 
 
 Japan has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Police announce frequent amphetamine busts. Therefore the idea that Adderall might have some legitimate medical use elsewhere strikes Japanese officers as far-fetched. 
 
 Most amphetamines are smuggled into Japan, which is why Customs inspectors search for them, especially in shipments from the Korean peninsula. It didn't help Russell that her 180 generic 20-milligram pills were repackaged - apparently in an old Tylenol bottle, instead of the original prescription container -- increasing officials' suspicions. 
 
 Jill Russell said she originally sent the three-month supply of pills that way to her daughter for two reasons. 
 
 First, as a physician who often prescribes Adderall, she routinely advises patients to consider keeping pills in unmarked containers because prescription bottles attract burglars, due to the substance's high street value. She advises against carrying the medication in a car or purse, and to consider keeping it in a locked safe. 
 
 Second, knowing of the stigma in Japan concerning mental disorders, she didn't want Carrie Russell's reputation to suffer in case someone opening her household shipments noticed the medication. 
 
 "My repackaging was not an attempt to break or circumvent the law," Jill Russell wrote in a sworn affidavit sent Feb. 25 to Japanese police. "It was intended to preserve Carrie's privacy and dignity around a sensitive issue regarding medication to treat a disorder which falls under the area of mental health." 
 
 In a second affidavit sent Feb. 26, Jill Russell added: "At the time this medication was shipped, I did not know that later Carrie would be fortunate enough to be hired to teach in Japan, thus resulting in her move to Japan and the need to ship her belongings to Japan." 
 
 So far, the affidavits haven't swayed the police or prosecutor on the case. Neither have Jill Russell's answers to police officers during three phone calls from Japan, each lasting more than an hour. Officers also questioned Carrie's physician, Michelle Mears, by phone. 
 
 Officers said that under Japanese law, Carrie Russell can be jailed for as many as 23 days before being charged. If found guilty of smuggling amphetamines, she could be sentenced to years in prison. 
 
 Family members have worked on the case since Feb. 21, when Russell's father received word of Carrie's arrest from one of her friends. Russell's stepfather, Portland lawyer Loren Podwill, immediately contacted the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to find out where she was. 
 
 It took U.S. diplomats 24 hours to locate her. The National Police Agency hadn't notified the embassy of her arrest, a step normally taken when Japanese police apprehend an American. 
 
 Family members worry that Carrie Russell might buckle under the relentless interrogations - at which she has no lawyer present - and confess to a crime she didn't commit. 
 
 Interventions by congressional staff members including those of Oregon's Democratic U.S. senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., have also failed so far to secure Russell's release. But the staff members continued working angles in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., over the weekend at all hours in hopes of a diplomatic solution. 
 
 On Thursday, Podwill wrote a heartfelt letter to the prosecutor in Nagoya. He described the background and character of the girl whom Jill and John Russell adopted at infancy from a Guatemalan birth mother. 
 
 Podwill described Carrie Russell's success in life through hard work and dedication despite the challenges she has faced since 7, when diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. 
 
 He noted his stepdaughter's volunteer work at a school for the deaf. He cited her work during three college summers in Japan and Germany, teaching children of military personnel. Russell had taught English in South Korea for the last two years. 
 
 "Like her dad," Podwill wrote, "she has a passion for working with children and teaching, which is what brought her to South Korea two years ago and to her new job in Japan, which she is supposed to start in a few weeks." 
 
 Podwill wrote in terms that a Japanese might understand. He asked the prosecutor to accept the family's sincerest apologies. He said that no one intended to ignore or break Japanese law. 
 
 "That's not who we are," Podwill wrote. "That's not who Carrie is. She made a mistake. Jill made a mistake." 
 
 "Carrie has been humiliated and punished enough for that mistake, which she will never make again." 
 
 rread@oregonian.com 
 
 503-294-5135 @ReadOregonian ||||| Thursday’s arrest of a high-profile Toyota Motor Corp. executive highlights the danger globetrotters can face bringing psychotropic or other medications into nations where they are banned. 
 
 Julie Hamp, named Toyota’s first female managing officer in April, faces drug-smuggling charges after having oxycodone pills sent to her from the United States, said a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, declining to be named on policy grounds. Her arrest was front-page news in Japan, coming amid a widely publicized crackdown on the sale of mood-altering herbs that previously fell outside the nation’s strict laws against recreational drugs. 
 
 Hamp denies that she imported illegal drugs, the police spokesman said. Toyota spokesman Itsuki Kurosu said in an emailed statement the company is cooperating with the investigation. 
 
 Hamp, 55, “said she did not believe she had imported narcotics when she was arrested,” another police official said. 
 
 By midday Friday, she had been sent to the prosecutor’s office, a third official said. 
 
 In a hastily arranged news conference, Toyota President Akio Toyoda apologized for causing a stir and vowed to cooperate fully with the investigation. 
 
 He said Hamp is a “very important colleague and for me and Toyota . . . we believe that the investigation will reveal that Ms. Julie Hamp had no intention to violate the law.” 
 
 Toyoda said he appointed her as the head of communications mainly due to her personality and efforts to work closely with other employees, adding she has been also trying hard to adjust to Japanese culture. 
 
 The parcel was sent on June 8 from the U.S. and arrived at Narita airport on June 11, the police official said. 
 
 The package, labelled “necklaces,” contained several small boxes, each holding accessories and several tablets, reports said, adding police suspect there had been an attempt to hide the drug. 
 
 Hamp was promoted to head of communications for the auto giant earlier this year — making her one of the company’s most senior non-Japanese executives — after previously working at Toyota’s North American division. 
 
 The incident illustrates the different perceptions of drugs such as oxycodone, an opioid pain medication, which are more casually prescribed in the U.S. No matter how routine at home, the use of psychotropic drugs is strictly controlled in Japan and foreign visitors need to be careful, said Robert Dujarric, a director at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies of Temple University. 
 
 “It’s considered by the authorities as equivalent to a friend mailing you in the U.S. with opium from Afghanistan,” Dujarric said. “Psychotropic medicines as well as prescription drugs that are legal in the U.S. are illegal in Japan,” where there’s stronger concern about addiction, he said. 
 
 Earlier this year, Carrie Russell of the U.S. was detained for 18 days after her mother mailed her an amphetamine medication for attention-deficit disorder. The 26-year-old English teacher was released in March only after a personal appeal from American Ambassador Caroline Kennedy. 
 
 The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo warns its citizens to check before mailing or carrying medication to Japan, or face arrest and detention. 
 
 “Heroin, cocaine, MDMA, opium, cannabis, stimulant drugs including some prescription medications such as Adderall . . . are prohibited in Japan,” the embassy says on its website. 
 
 “Japanese customs officials or police can detain travellers importing prohibited items. Japanese customs officials do not make on-the-spot ‘humanitarian’ exceptions for medicines that are prohibited in Japan,” it warned. 
 
 Of the 13,121 individuals charged with drug crimes last year, 778, or 5.9 percent, were foreigners, according to national police data. More than 80 percent of the crimes involved methamphetamines. 
 
 The same year, cases of drug smuggling rose 11 percent to 245, according to police data, which does not indicate how many cases involved prescription medicines. 
 
 Japan allows individuals to bring restricted prescription drugs such as oxycodone into the country with prior approval, according to the health ministry’s website, which lists oxycodone as a “narcotic.” 
 
 It is possible that illegal imports of painkillers and other drugs are increasing, and police decided to send a strong message with the arrest of Hamp, Dujarric said. 
 
 “It’s either a strong message or there’s something else behind the story.”
– Carrie Russell apparently thought little of shipping her Adderall to Japan before moving there to teach English. But Japanese police saw it differently, arresting the 26-year-old American last month for allegedly smuggling illegal amphetamines into Japan, the Oregonian reports. "We're left in a state of disbelief," says her dad, a Portland teacher. "We would never imagine something like this assaulting us from a civilized country like Japan." But Adderall is strictly illegal there, and police can hold Russell for up to 23 days without charging her. Meanwhile, her family, US politicians, and even her doctor are trying to get her out of a possible years-long prison sentence—for carrying a drug that's one of America's most widely prescribed, NPR reports. Trouble is, Japan's drug laws are among the world's toughest. The country routinely announces busts of amphetamines, which Yakuza crime syndicates smuggle into Japan for those who pull long hours, like white-collar workers, students, and truck drivers. Another problem: Russell's mom sent her the prescription in an old Tylenol bottle, which created the appearance of smuggling. She says she did it to ward off thieves and avoid identifying Russell's illness—attention deficit disorder—in a country where mental illness is stigmatized. But warnings against taking Adderall to Japan do exist online, and so far Japanese authorities haven't budged. "She made a mistake," her stepfather wrote Japanese prosecutors. "Carrie has been humiliated and punished enough for that mistake, which she will never make again." (A tourist was once jailed in Dubai after reporting a rape.)