A 26-year-old Oregon woman named Carrie Russell—arrested in Japan after her mother sent her prescription Adderall—has been released after 18 days in custody. U.S. officials including Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Japanese Ambassador Caroline Kennedy had campaigned for Russell’s release; the American was waiting to start a job teaching English when she was detained after receiving pills that her mother had packed, unwisely, in an unmarked container.
Writes the Oregonian: “Amphetamines have a sinister reputation in Japan, where the lucrative black-market trade is controlled by the Yakuza, the country’s main organized-crime syndicate.”
Russell, who has been reuinted with her family and will return to Oregon, said the detention facility where she was held was “clean” and “not anything terrifying” and that she would be happy to travel to Japan in the future.
