CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU

In a scenario that's been done so often it has become a cliche,
Dallas Austin got busted in a foreign country for attempting to bring
in drugs for his personal use.

En route to Naomi Campbell's three-day birthday party, the Columbus
native was arrested May 19 at Dubai International Airport. He's
currently being held at Al Rashidiya prison, and is scheduled to
appear at another hearing July 2, according to wire reports.

After hearing about the arrest, my first thought was of "Midnight
Express," the '70s movie, based on a true story, about the horrors of
a prison in Turkey.

No, Dubai isn't in Turkey. But at first glance, it appears that
Austin may not have factored where he was going into the equation
that included recreational drugs.

The details of Austin's actual offense aren't quite clear. We've
heard he had cocaine. But we've also heard there might have been some
marijuana.

There were reports that he might have had a limited amount of the
illegal substance on his person. But we also heard that in Dubai
having a substance in your system is considered possession.

In the '70s, when we were stationed in Germany, we were routinely
warned about breaking local laws. Unfortunately, U.S. citizens often
forget that U.S. law is not international law.

At the time, one of the most puzzling incidents I read about had to
do with DUI suspects in Germany. If a suspect refused to voluntarily
give a blood sample, he or she could be held down and the sample
could be forcibly taken.

I always thought that action was cruel and unusual, but I'm a U.S. citizen.

And it's U.S. thinking that gets many Americans on foreign shores into trouble.

There were horror stories about soldiers getting into legal trouble
while on leave in various countries. When we actually saw "Midnight
Express," we were not as shocked as we might have been.

It's no secret that a number of musicians consider their substances
of choice -- legal or illegal -- an integral part of their creative
processes. Artistic personalities, which include writers, often lean
toward the "party" life, so it's hardly a surprise when one of them
runs afoul of the law.

But Austin's circumstances are potentially far more serious than, for
instance, Dionne Warwick's being busted by Miami airport police in
2002 for allegedly stashing 11 marijuana cigarettes in a small silver
case in her luggage. And it is certainly more serious than the time
Whitney Houston -- Warwick's cousin -- was busted with one-half ounce
of pot at Keahole-Kona Airport in Hawaii.

No, officials in some foreign countries take every opportunity to
make ugly Americans even uglier by administering maximum punishment.

By all accounts, Austin is in a comfortable, non-hostile prison
setting. But it's still prison. And he might be looking at one or two
years, minimum. If prison gives him street cred, he's racking up
international cred, and the meter is still running.