In February, a court in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, sentenced Briton Keith Brown, 43, to the standard four-year minimum term in prison for violating the country’s extreme “zero tolerance” drug laws, even though the only drug found was a “speck” (0.003 grams) of cannabis caught in the tread of his shoe and discovered only because the Dubai airport uses sophisticated drug-detection equipment. Previously, a Canadian man was imprisoned for “possession” of three poppy seeds (from a bread roll he had eaten at Heathrow Airport in London) that had fallen into his clothing as he prepared for a flight to Dubai. [The Independent (London), 2-20-08]