Pot users, be careful at airports
Bringing it through security could spell trouble.
In January, California joined the growing list of places where the sale of recreational marijuana is allowed, and now one in five Americans lives in a state where buying pot can be a tourist activity.
But if you’re considering traveling with pot, be careful. Marijuana is still an illegal drug under federal law, and post-security areas at airports are ruled by federal agencies.
So, as in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Alaska and Nevada, bringing legally purchased pot past a security checkpoint in California can still trigger a law enforcement response.
The Transportation Security Administration says its officers remain focused on security and detecting weapons, explosives and other threats to aviation and passengers — not on sniffing out drugs. But if a TSA officer does find marijuana during the screening of carry-on or checked baggage, the policy is to call in local airport law enforcement, said TSA spokeswoman
Lorie Dankers.
“The passenger’s originating and destination airports are not taken into account,” said Dankers. “TSA’s response to the discovery of marijuana is the same in every state and at every airport — regardless of whether marijuana has been or is going to be legalized.”
But at most commercial airports in California, as in other states where possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana is now legal, once airport law enforcement steps in, nothing much usually happens.
According to the Los Angeles Airport Police, which operates at Los Angeles International Airport and several other Southern California airports, if someone is stopped by the TSA with a state-legal amount of medical or recreational marijuana, airport police would not charge them with anything “because it is not a crime.”
The same goes for John Wayne Airport in Orange County. “If the TSA calls us (about finding marijuana), we’d go up and make sure it is within the legal quantity. If it is, we’d just stand by while the passenger decides what to do with it,” said Lt. Mark Gonzales, airport police services bureau chief with the Orange County Sheriff ’s Department. “TSA may not want it to fly, but that doesn’t mean it is illegal in California.”
Gonzales says so far his team hasn’t been called to the airport checkpoint to deal with a marijuana issue. “I don’t think a lot of people are risking it,” he said.
In airports that don’t ban cannabis property-wide, local law enforcement called over by TSA officers will outline a passenger’s options, which may include disposing of the product in a trash bin or locked amnesty box, giving it to a friend in the terminal or putting it in their car.
To alert fliers to the rules about traveling with recreational pot purchased legally in California — and to advertise their cannabis company — in November, Organa Brands ran an ad in the bottom of the bins at the security checkpoints at Ontario International Airport. The message read: “Cannabis is legal. Traveling with it is not. Leave it in California.”
“We were very confident in the positive message that the trays carried,” said Organa Brands spokesman Jackson Tilley, although he says the company wasn’t too surprised when a month into the campaign the airport asked that the cannabis messages in the trays be removed.
Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada, where sales of recreational marijuana became legal in July, has a sign in its smoking area reminding travelers that marijuana use is not allowed. At McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, there is a formal, airport-wide ban on possessing (or advertising) marijuana, with notices about the Clark County’s Commission’s ruling posted on the airport’s website.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, which back in 2014 was the first state to license stores to sell recreational marijuana, Denver International Airport still maintains its policy of prohibiting marijuana anywhere on airport property. “Police ask passengers found with (marijuana) to discard the drug,” said airport spokesman Heath Montgomery. “But we’ve had so few instances that we don’t track these contacts anymore.”