| While visiting a Las Vegas dispensary during CBT’s 2022 Cannabis Conference, the budtender wondered what else he could help me find. I just got done picking out a few topicals and asked if there was something else he thought would be safe for me to fly home in my luggage. He recommended a 100-milligram shot from the beverage menu, suggesting I could pour one down right before a security checkpoint or pack a few stowaways in my check-in baggage.
While flying with cannabis can be risky business in certain parts of the world, what about from one state-legal market to another in the U.S.? That’s a question on plenty of Americans’ minds ahead of holiday travel.
As I wrote in July 2021, transporting cannabis across states lines is not legal in the U.S., but that’s not a primary focus for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Cannabis isn’t something TSA agents search for or seize during their security screenings, according to the administration’s travel policy on the plant. If they find it while conducting their day-to-day security duties, then their protocol is to notify local law enforcement.
Earlier this month, TSA’s Twitter handle, which includes more than a quarter million followers, tweeted: “We’re not in the business of being a buzzkill here, but Mary Jane remains illegal on the federal level. Unless of course it contains 0.3 percent or less of THC [on a dry-weight basis].”
What’s a dry-weight basis anyway? Read Managing Editor Patrick Williams’ article below.
Various U.S. airports do have a range of cannabis policies in place, from amnesty boxes in Chicago to no-arrest stances in Los Angeles and Albany, N.Y. But consequences are very much based on the law of the (state) land. What is legal to possess in Michigan or decriminalized in Ohio has drastically different implications from the laws and penalties in Texas, for example. Still, flying with cannabis has the potential to delay your holiday travels—penalties or not.
But TSA’s main target is security threats to aircrafts and passengers. Cannabis doesn’t fit that bill.
As patients and consumers take to the skies this holiday season, licensed dispensaries have an opportunity to increase their marketing reach, especially in states that offer medical cannabis reciprocity.
-Tony Lange, Associate Editor | 