DOSE:			Cannabis	(flowers)
			Cannabis	(edible / food)

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

Although this story is about marijuana, it isn’t about getting stoned, but describes mind-altering experiences surrounding its legal status and airport security.

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Do I Live a Charmed Life, or Am I Just a Lucky F@#%?
a learning experience

(Note: names, dates and locations have been changed or “vagued” to protect both the innocent and guilty)

Act I

On or about April 25, 2004, 5:30 a.m., at a small municipal airport in the Pacific Northwest, with a one-way ticket to Southwest Florida.

I was on my way to meet my girlfriend, Susan, to drive with her back to the Pacific Northwest in her Geo Metro, along with a significant amount of her worldly possessions packed into every nook and cranny we could find in the little car. We would be spending about 12 hours a day in the car together, for four straight days, in the equivalent of a two-person Gemini space capsule. Given the fact that, up until that time, we’d essentially drive each other crazy after a relatively short time under the best of circumstances, I was a wee bit apprehensive that we’d survive the experience intact without some sort of diversion. To address this potential, I deemed it necessary to take along some “chemical diversion” not easily obtained at a retail outlet along the way: a couple small buds of marijuana and a fair helping of homemade cannabis butterscotch. Susan had ready access to her drug of choice: white wine.

To facilitate utilization of the bud, I also packed a small “pipe.” It was a beat-up stem of an old bong; 3' long by 3/8' diameter aluminum tube with a one-hit bowl attached to one end. I’d partially crimped the lower middle of the tube with a pair of pliers so I could use it as a “chillum,” and although I had used it in the past, it’d been several months since. (This wasn’t my primary smoking device, and my cannabis use was quite low at the time anyway.) The thing really didn’t even look like a pipe, more like an unusable fragment of something long forgotten. Besides, “paraphernalia” is legal in the state where I live, so I didn’t give it much thought as I tossed it into my “cosmetics” case, which I packed in my carry-on bag.

I had the pot in a “micro” baggie that I put in my shirt pocket. My general rule of thumb is always to carry obvious contraband on my person; under normal circumstances a person is never physically “frisked” during an airport security check, only “wanded” for metals. (I was careless to have just put it in a pocket. I should’ve put it down the front of my pants, but, with less than three hours of sleep the previous night, I wasn’t thinking too clearly.) I packed the candy in the carry-on along with a few food items.

I went to the ticket counter to get my boarding pass. Just before the clerk handed me the pass, she circled something on it with a yellow highlighter. “Mr. Smith, you’ve been selected to undergo a complete luggage and personal search.” Due to sleep-deprived incoherence, it never occurred to me to head to the restroom and “clean up my act,” so I went directly to the security checkpoint.

The “full search” entailed the standard X-ray scan of all items and a metal detector walk through. In addition, I underwent a complete “body wanding” (hand-held metal detector scan) and my carry-on luggage was physically searched. While one security person proceeded to wand me, another systematically went through my pack. I passed the wanding, but when the pack-searcher got to my “cosmetics” case, she pulled out the beat-up bong stem, gave it a sniff, an appropriate grimace at the odor, and proceeded to call over the police officer standing nearby.

I went into shock.

The cop came over and dittoed the security person’s visual and olfactory examination, including the requisite grimace when the odor hit her nasal passages. She then informed me that I was going to be cited for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, a misdemeanor that carried a $250 fine; my very first “drug offense” – ouch, but not the end of the world. When I said I thought paraphernalia was legal, she informed me that indeed that is true. What is not legal is “lingering residue.” “Oh. Wow. I had no idea. I didn’t even know that thing was in there.” (blablabla...) I didn’t say much. I felt like a total fool, was just shy of scared shitless, and my brain was working in basic reptilian-survival-mode. Knowing the old adage of “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” I now expected to be thoroughly searched. The pot didn’t concern me; I already had the citation in the bag. What did concern me was the candy. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that “altering” marijuana (such as concentrating into hashish) was a felony. State Pen, here I come... (I was being a bit overly melodramatic in my head.) Later, I couldn’t find any information to back-up that assumption. So I now believe that the candy falls under the same heading of “misdemeanor.” But at the time, Oh Shit!

I could tell that she was mulling over the situation: he has marijuana paraphernalia (though somewhat unusual), therefore he probably has marijuana in his possession. She was in her fifties; her general demeanor was no-nonsense. She was obviously not a rookie, yet seemed to be “struggling” with how to proceed. She finally wrote the citation and let me go. I wasn’t frisked, nor was my carry-on more thoroughly scrutinized. She never even asked if I had any pot on me.

I walked over to the boarding area, which was only about 40 feet from the security checkpoint, and sat down. There were only a few other people sitting in the area, and no one was nearby where I sat. About 15 minutes later she walked by, slowing near me as if she intended to address me, but didn’t stop and proceeded back to the security area.

I got on the plane with the drugs... and then never touched them during the road trip. (Susan and I did have issues along the way, but nothing that required medication on my part; she did buy a bottle of wine, though.)

I really don’t know why the cop acted the way she did, except to say that this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me. It’s not that I have any “control” over this kind of situation – far from it. I am clueless, on autopilot, just waiting for my fate to unfold, and I say very little – almost like a scared kid or something. On the other hand, there seems to be something about the vague way I “shut down” when “caught with my hand in the cookie jar” that seems to vibe people into a sort of confusion that causes this somewhat odd behavior. I have a few even more bizarre tales like this from years gone by.

But why even take the risk? For one thing – attitude. I think one reason I deemed the above worth the risk is that I seem to have this perpetual underlying drive to, in my own way, thumb my nose at this society’s utterly hypocritical views on recreational drug use, especially with regards to marijuana. Another reason, and perhaps why I was a bit too cavalier about the pipe to begin with, is that I also have a significant history of getting away with shit like this – sometimes equally poorly thought-out, but most of the time I do have my act together. I’ve learned that “discretion” is every bit as important as “planning.” For instance, had I been flying out of a major urban hub instead of a small municipal airport, I wouldn’t have even considered taking the pipe (and had I been caught, would’ve expected a bit more by-the-book treatment). Then again, “just plain dumb luck” has saved my ass more than once. I just happened to get caught this particular time. As I said, this was my first official drug offense, in 30 years of what, in times past, had been excessive and blatant cornucopic drug use. Perhaps I’ve been lucky; perhaps I’m charmed. This is just who I am; it’s worked so far.

So, I learned never to take any metal paraphernalia through airport security...

However: Act II

On or about February 10, 2007, 11:30 a.m., at a small municipal airport in the Pacific Northwest, with a round-trip ticket to Southern California.

I was on my way to surprise my best friend for his 50th birthday. We’re a couple of “70’s stoners,” which encompasses a significant amount of our shared history, so of course we had to have some weed to properly celebrate...

I decided not to take any paraphernalia; it’d be easy enough to score rolling papers or fabricate something that’d do the trick when I got there. The pot concerned me though, because it was so aromatic that even when bagged up good it still reeked. I didn’t want to “waft” through security...

Back in the 70’s, a friend learned while in the Air Force, that the “Cadillac paper” the Air Force used as high-tech packing wrap for shipping jet aircraft parts was impervious to odors, so much so that he successfully used it to foil even the dope-sniffing dogs that were periodically brought through his semi-private dorm room. “Cadillac paper” was silver Mylar, similar if not identical to that now used in some processed food packaging in place of the traditional “tin can.” I’d saved a few of these packages after eating the contents.

Another trick I learned from an old hippy, who grew pot and sent large quantities of skunky bud through the mail for years without a problem. The gist of it was to double-bag the pot and put a little bit of Comet, or other bleach-containing cleanser, into the outer bag. The bleach supposedly destroys any vapors that seep through the pot bag.

So, being the brilliant idiot that I am, I put the pot in a baggie, put the baggie in the Mylar pouch along with a half-teaspoon of Comet, and sealed it all up with a hot iron. The pouch was almost flat and fit in the front of my pants completely unnoticeable. It worked like a charm...

I also took along some of my famous cannabis candy.

When I arrived at the airport, I put the Mylar pouch in the front of my pants, stuck the bag of candy in my crotch, and walked into the terminal. I obtained my boarding pass at the ticket counter and, after double-checking everything in the restroom, got in line to pass through security. I loaded my carry-on, shoes and assorted miscellaneous items on the conveyor belt for X-ray scrutiny, and then proceeded through the metal detector. BEEP! “Sir, would you please step back through the detector and make sure you’ve emptied all your pockets.” I went back through the detector and double-checked. Nothing. Walked through the detector again. BEEP! “Sir, would you please step over here.”

I went into shock.

I had just leaned that silver Mylar is metalized Mylar...

The security guy got out the wand and had me assume the position: arms out to the side, legs slightly apart. He ran the wand over my body. When he got to the area above my crotch – BEEP! He lightly felt around the area. “Are you sure you’ve removed everything from your pockets?” “Yes.” He felt something in one of my pockets and asked what it was.

By the way, I’d also gotten some prescription painkillers from Susan for my lower back pain that was acting up; I reached into my pocket and pulled out a couple Percocet (a.k.a. OxyContin, Rush’s drug of choice) and Vicodin. However, he wasn’t interested in my Schedule II and III pharmaceuticals. “Are you wearing a money belt?” “No.”

In the middle of all this, my legs were literally shaking, though my pants sufficiently obscured the motion. The thought went through my mind: just pull it out and get this over with. Then: NO, HE HAS TO FIND IT HIMSELF; HE HAS TO WANT IT.

I kept my mouth shut, and kept vaguely pointing to my metal pants snap as if that was to blame.

After three or four passes, he looked at the wand, double-checked the auto-adjust sensitivity and wanded me again. BEEP! “I don’t understand it. There’s nothing there and it keeps going off.”

He hung up the wand and said I could put on my shoes and go.

HUH??? He didn’t want it...

Right then another security guy brought my bag over and said he’d have to check the contents, because the X-ray showed up something suspicious. (Oh fuck!) I asked what it was he was looking for, and he said a lighter. I told him where it was, he took it, closed up the bag, and off I went.

However, the adventure wasn’t over yet – shock is an interesting psychological phenomenon.

I walked “nonchalantly” to the escalator, down the corridor and into the restroom near the boarding gate. I went into the far stall; there was someone in the adjacent stall. I made some noise and flushed the toilet as I pulled out the pouch. I tore it open and pulled out the baggie. And a half-teaspoon of Comet fell out onto the floor.

Oh shit! Anthrax!

Okay, anthrax that smells like bleach, but still. In these paranoid times, a bunch of whitish powder on the floor of an otherwise scrupulously clean restroom could draw unnecessary attention. I exited the stall before the other guy finished, put the baggie in my back pocket, and threw the pouch into the trash. As I left, I realized that the silver pouch was plainly visible to anyone standing near the trashcan – very out of place. I was too freaked with the other guy in there, so I went out and sat down for several minutes so I wouldn’t look too suspicious going back into the restroom so soon.

As I was pretending to read, I noticed an overpowering odor of bleach. (Oh shit again...) I went back into the restroom. This time I was alone. I pulled the pouch out of the trash and the baggie out of my pocket and washed both, to remove any fingerprints from the pouch and Comet from the baggie. I wadded up the pouch in a bunch of paper towels and threw it back into the trashcan. I brushed the residual Comet out of my pocket as best as I could, put the baggie into my carry-on, and went back out and sat down.

Several minutes later, it dawned on me that I wasn’t at the right gate! Just then, I heard my name called over the PA system!! (shitshitshit!!!) I hurried back the way I came, down the escalator on the way to the other gate, passing within 40 feet of the security checkpoint, and was quickly ushered onto my plane, wafting bleach along as I went.

I was a total basket case the rest of the day.

But I got the pot to the party... ;-)

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 68757
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 49
Published: Apr 28, 2022	Views: 594
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Police / Customs (60), Cannabis (1) : Public Space (Museum, Park, etc) (53), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Retrospective / Summary (11)