Don't carry Pan, Pan Parag, or Khas Khas (Poppy Seed) when travelling through UAE

Today, I received an email titled "A very serious warning .. while traveling to or via Gulf countries." It turned out to be an useful information for people traveling to and from Nepal through UAE (although it looked spammy at first).

I checked the UAE government website and found that the information is correct:

The following substances are also banned: poppy seeds (even in bakery products), qat leaf, betel leaf or nuts, niswar and gutkha.

While searching the internet, I have also found a number of report on the arrest of innocent people in the UAE airport on drug charges:

A February 2008 BBC article writes about a Swiss national, "serving a four-year jail term after three poppy seeds from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow airport were found on his clothes".

There are reports of the arrest of an Indian man who received a ten year sentence for carrying khas khas (poppy seed).

It is better to be safe, than sorry, and not to carry Pan, Pan Parag, Gutkha, Poppy Seeds and the likes, when traveling through the Gulf countries.

Well, not all emails tagged as 'spam' are spams!
Last time, my genuine lottery winning notification was also tagged 'spam' :-)