Traveling with Medication

CONTRIBUTED BY KANDY

While packing luggage at my parents’ home, before we PCS-ed to Okinawa, I remember my mother meticulously stuffing baby Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol and Dramamine into every available space in my suitcase.

Now, having been a military brat, an active duty member and now a military dependent, I am traumatized fully aware that rules seem to be created, then amended, possibly reversed and always cursed.   In not so many words, difficult to keep track of!  Not to mention the differences between the military branches.

One of our readers needs our help.  She would like to know if a special form, such as “Yakkan Shoumei” is required for either prescription or OTC medications to be brought into Okinawa.  And would a requirement like that even apply to SOFA status personnel?

If anyone out there would clarify the current requirement for SOFA status personnel in bringing medications to Okinawa, both prescription and OTC, it would help alleviate all of our headaches.