Australia's customs policy is tight – items you can't import there include chemical weapons, dolphins and novelty erasers shaped like food – and thanks to Sylvester Stallone we've learnt you can't import 48 vials of human growth hormone either.
You may remember that Sylvester Stallone was interrogated in an Australian airport last month after customs officials apparently seized some kind of banned item in his luggage during a trip to promote Rocky Balboa. Well now it turns out that the banned item was 48 vials of the human growth substance Jintropin, and Sylvester Stallone has been formally charged with trying to illegally import the substance into Australia, which carries the maximum penalty of £44,000 and five years in jail. But let's look on the bright side – if Sylvester Stallone had tried to illegally import a money box with the wrong sort of paint on it, the maximum fine would have been a million years in prison and a legally-enforced name-change to Sylvester The Bluey-Humping Drongo.
Sylvester Stallone is a close friend of trouble – over the last few years trouble has hit Sylvester Stallone in the form of lawsuits from angry boxer, the rapid onset of old age and the possession of a movie career so terrible that making a sixth Rocky movie was the best idea he's had in a decade. But the prospect of spending five years in an Australian prison because he was trying to sneak 48 vials of human growth hormone into the country is perhaps the biggest trouble that Sylvester Stallone has ever experienced.
Last month, Sylvester Stallone got in some Australian customs bother when – on a jaunt to promote Rocky Balboa – he was treated to a two-hour interrogation by customs officials about his alleged possession of a banned item. As we've already pointed out, Australia's ridiculous customs policy means that the banned item could have been anything from a cloned human embryo to a bit of wood that comes from Liberia, but it turns out that Sylvester Stallone was apparently trying to sneak in 48 vials of the human growth hormone Jintropin – and now Stallone has been officially charged, as The Telegraph reports:
Sylvester Stallone, star of the Rocky and Rambo movies, has been charged with trying to import human growth hormone into Australia. The actor was accused by the Australian Customs Service of attempting to bring 48 vials of the muscle-building hormone into the country when he visited last month. Human growth hormone is officially considered a performance-enhancing drug in Australia and it cannot be imported without a permit… Documents presented to the court allege that Stallone ticked the “no” box on the customs form when asked to declare whether he was bringing in restricted or prohibited goods “such as medicines, steroids, firearms or any kind of illicit drugs”. But customs officers allegedly found five boxes of the growth hormone Jintropin after an X-ray of bags among his entourage.
Anyone wondering how Sylvester Stallone got in such incredible shape ahead of Rocky Balboa might be starting to have an inkling at the moment. The substance is claimed to increase energy, boost muscle mass, reduce fat, smooth out wrinkles, regenerate shrinking organs and boost sexual performance, although some say that human growth hormone is only good for making unusually small children bigger.
Whatever the effects of the drug, though, possession of it in Australia might lead to Sylvester Stallone spending five years in prison there when his case finally reaches court. Obviously five years lost to jail would mean that Sylvester Stallone's dreams of making an Edgar Allen Poe film would take a hefty setback. And is that really such a bad thing?
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Freddy Vs Jason says
Hormones? That reminds me of the South park episode with Christopher Reeve drinking stem cells from out of babies’ spines…