Took a quick trip to Amsterdam because that's the American pot head dream and my crazy friend wanted to see Rome. Before medical marijuana was accepted in the US, Amsterdam was THE legal marijuana bucket list thing to do and this was my second and most likely final trip to Amsterdam so I was not happy with the prospect of flying to a non-marijuana friendly country.
'You can do without for a few days, it won't kill you". I'm not on vacation to do without, if anything I'm here to over indulge but I acquiesce to make my friend happy as she is REALLY into all that Roman era stuff, she watches all the mini-series, movies, documentaries and whatnot.
During this time it seemed to me like America and Europe were more concerned with bombs and terrorists than marijuana and it seemed the dogs didn't sniff me out during our last trip so I figured I would try my luck in Italy.
I had purchased a nice four gram bud and just couldn't leave it behind. I had two mostly empty baggies with just enough remnants of some good hash in one and probably a half gram of the first days weed in the other which I stuck in the socks I was wearing. I had totally forgotten about the dozen roaches (left-over joints) that were in a plastic container rolled up in my jeans in my suitcase.
Flying out of Amsterdam was no problem, walked right past all of the faithful, well groomed, well behaved dogs and they didn't twitch a nose hair. Why would they? Marijuana is legal there.
Flying into Rome was like going back in time a few decades. It seemed to be a poorer country with less education sort of like the Deep South in America. In the other European countries I had been, most people spoke a decent amount of English, not so much in Italy.
As we disembarked I pointed out to the wife that the dog and the guard with the assault rifle was following me. "Oh REALLY?!" That's when she knew I had disobeyed her direct command to NOT bring any pot. There's nothing like the love in her eyes when she says calmly," I hope they take you out back and shoot you."
I circled around a support column, past an overflowing garbage bin and switched to the other side of the hallway against the flow of people for a bit then cut back across to my, by now, super happy wife and sure enough that dog was following my every move, quite remarkable really. Damn it man! A drug sniffing dog!
I tell the wife that I'm going to get busted but it should be no big deal as she rolls her eyes. "The worse they'll do is just kick me out of the country."
"It'll be on your permanent record!"
BFD! Like I care, it's going to hurt my reputation as a musician?
Meanwhile my crazy friend has gone to use the bathroom and asked us to wait and I do my best to create some space between myself and the dog but the inevitable happens.
The guard with the assault rifle and beautiful, well disciplined dog now sniffing at my socks says,' Sir! Do you have any marihuana or hashish?
I'm wearing my big hat with a pot leaf on it and a t-shirt advertising the fact that I'm a stoner so I simply said," Of course I do, we just came from Amsterdam!" with a big, friendly smile as if I expected him to say," well that's ok then, welcome to Italy!"
The worse thing would be to lie to the man and insult his intelligence. That would make me the asshole.
He stood there stunned for a moment and slowly shook his head as if he were saying no and motioned me off to the side, sat me down in a chair and he didn't have to say a word. I reached into my socks and pulled out the two remnant bags and handed them over.
He stares at the minuscule bags with a confused look and with a heavy sigh motions me down the hallway towards a non-descript, grey metal door and that's the last my wife and friend can see of me.
My wife isn't panicked because she has taken twelve Xanax by now and she knows how I am. Our friend however thinks they are taking me out back to the firing squad and is losing her mind. One of the guards asked me if the crazy woman banging on the door was with me and I look out the peephole and sure enough it's my crazy friend.
Bless her heart she was only trying to help but all she managed to do was exasperate the men in fatigues with automatic rifles who harshly told her to wait elsewhere and not to "touch the door again!"
There was another lady in a hijab going off about something in another room, it didn't sound pleasant at all but the guards sounded calm and reasonable which despite her rantings, I took that as a good sign.
The guard took my passport and disappeared around the corner leaving the dog with me.
That dog never took her eye off my foot with the four gram bag still stuffed in my sock.
I don't speak Italian and she wasn't trained in English so there was no way to break the ice with her. Not even high pitched lip noises or smoochie poochie noises distracted that beautiful German Shepherd from the pungent smell of that bud in my sock and her sworn duty.
Every so often a different guard would come out and look at me and then disappear around the corner excitedly whispering in Italian...with the fact I resemble ZZ Top I'm sure it had them going a little bit as this was before the resurgence of the popularity of beards.
A couple of guards came out and asked me to open my suitcase so I grabbed without hesitation and before I could even open it they took my willingness as a sign I was hiding anything (other than the container of roaches I forgot about) but the dog was not fooled and appeared miffed that no one in charge was recognizing her alerts. These guys must not have been trained with the dogs.
By this time they've figured out that I'm not a drug smuggler, don't have any outstanding warrants and as such really don't have time for an idiot American. They still had the crazy lady in the hijab to deal with.
Finally, they brought me into the 'inner sanctum' and did there best to explain that Europe is not like the United States, just because something is legal in one country doen't make it legal in the all of the EU. Well, I'll be damned.
One thing that's the same in every country is bullshit paperwork. In the process of trying to fill out the 'occupation' section and to help explain what I do for a living, I showed them the YouTube video of my band recorded live at the world famous Caribbean Club as they weren't comprehending my southern, hillbilly drawl.
Turns out they are big fans of American Rock and Roll and watched the entire six minute video of my band playing a cover of Molly Hatchets cover of the Allman Bros song "Dreams". There were four of them and their reaction was definitely the desired effect.
They excitedly started trying to speak English but all I could gather through the broken English is that they were aspiring rockers who wished I had brought a guitar or if they had one of their guitars I could "teach" them some things.
In the meantime the dog was growing impatient and started whining and trying to paw at my foot that still concealed that four grams of glorious green and now her handler was shushing her and reprimanding her to leave me be. I reckon they thought she was smelling the residual smell on my person not the four grams in my sock.
They really liked my sunburst Les Paul on the video and they had some gear catalogs and were trying to ask me about my rig and we did some air guitar licks together. It seemed like it was a big deal to them to meet an American "ROCK STAR" on YouTube. I guess it's all about perception.
The main guy who spoke the most English was now processing all this paperwork written in Italian of course and had me signing forms; "This say we search, sign, make judge happy, this say we cavity search, sign, make judge happy, this say you confess sign, make judge happy."
"And I don't owe you a fine or anything? "Judge say not do it again or very bad." The dog is now beside herself, barking and whining and desperately trying to paw at my foot and I'm thinking, "What a bad good dog" as the guard sternly admonished her and led her away to another room. Whew! Thank the universe for small favors, big internal sigh of relief.
My crazy friend who had been impatiently waiting with my wife were relieved and utterly amazed as I emerged from the non-descript, grey metal door shaking hands and being pat on the back and saying goodbye to my new friends as they pointed me in the right direction towards the exit.
"Stop by Key Largo if you come to America, I'm easy to find" and with that we were on our way.
We catch a taxi and my wife sighs," I guess we don't have any pot to smoke" implying it was a wasted effort because I got caught just like she knew I would but when I pulled that four gram nugget of stinky sweet bud out of my sock they knew my vision was destiny.
It's kind of sad to think about but that beautiful dog is now dead and I was probably her "one that got away", hopefully she won't hold it against me in the next life. Peace and Love!
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