Can you bring weed on a plane? It's complicated

As weed becomes ineligible successful much states, however and if travelers tin bring their stash connected committee remains up successful the air.

Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C., person legalized recreational use for adults 21 years and older, and 37 states and Washington, D.C., person aesculapian marijuana programs. But marijuana is inactive amerciable nether national law.

That leaves travelers hoping to alert with cookware connected home U.S. flights to look an ever-changing patchwork of conflicting authorities and national laws.

Traveling betwixt states wherever marijuana is ineligible successful some the root and destination whitethorn dependable straight-forward, but with overlapping jurisdictions and hard-to-enforce guidelines, it gets complicated.

Technically, no. Under national law, the possession and merchantability of marijuana is illegal.

Despite President Joe Biden's caller pardons for anyone convicted of a national transgression for elemental possession and his directive to reappraisal however marijuana is scheduled nether national law, marijuana is inactive classified arsenic a Schedule I substance.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Schedule I substances person nary accepted aesculapian usage and person a precocious imaginable for abuse. That besides includes drugs similar heroin and LSD.

And adjacent though airports are locally owned and operated, aerial question inactive falls nether national law.

"Most radical are nether the content that it is acceptable to question with cannabis since it is ineligible successful California, however, they are not alert of the question restrictions," said Karla Rodriguez, constabulary skipper astatine Los Angeles World Airports, which operates Los Angeles International Airport. "Additionally, passengers request to beryllium alert of the legality of cannabis successful different states oregon countries."

She said astir arrests impact "passengers who instrumentality an magnitude which is much than what is considered idiosyncratic use."

Well, that changes things.

The Transportation Security Administration said that aesculapian marijuana products that "contain nary much than 0.3 percent THC connected a adust value ground oregon that are approved by FDA," are permitted successful some carry-on bags and checked bags.

TSA agents wouldn't apt inquire to spot a aesculapian marijuana paper unless the traveler was carrying a larger magnitude oregon was traveling done a jurisdiction wherever weed was wholly illegal, an bureau spokesperson said.

TSA said it is not actively searching for marijuana but alternatively focuses screening procedures connected "potential threats to aviation and passengers" similar weapons and explosives.

"The TSA is looking for thing illegal, but they are not instrumentality enforcement," said William Kroger, a defence lawyer who's represented clients arrested for marijuana astatine airports.

Kroger says if agents find marijuana successful a passenger's luggage, the TSA doesn't person the powerfulness to apprehension travelers. It can, however, telephone section police. Some section constabulary officials told CNBC they would travel section laws successful that situation.

The DEA could beryllium alerted by section instrumentality enforcement if the quantity of marijuana exceeds idiosyncratic usage oregon officers person crushed to beryllium suspicious that the traveler intends to merchantability marijuana.

While the TSA isn't actively searching for marijuana oregon different federally illicit drugs, if it does find an magnitude that exceeds section limits, which alteration wide for some weed and THC-infused edibles, it volition alert section officials.

Some airports connection amnesty boxes for travelers to discard their cookware earlier traveling. There are 12 astatine Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and 1 astatine Midway International Airport, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.

Cannabis products are legal for idiosyncratic usage in Illinois as of Jan. 1, 2020, and residents tin person up to 30 grams, oregon astir an ounce, of cannabis flower.

"When the amnesty boxes are cleared and determination are items successful the box, officers volition make a report, inventory the cannabis oregon cannabis products and past they volition beryllium disposed of akin to however narcotics are disposed of," a spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department said successful a statement.

In New York and New Jersey, airdrome constabulary enforce those states' laws, said a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the area's largest airports. New York and New Jersey each legalized marijuana for recreational use successful 2021.

Travelers astatine Denver International Airport tin instrumentality their marijuana to their conveyance oregon walk it to idiosyncratic not traveling if it's nary much than 2 ounces, according to the Denver Police Department. Colorado legalized recreational cookware backmost successful 2014.

They tin besides surrender it to constabulary officers wherever it volition beryllium "sent to get destroyed and not returned to them," said Jay Casillas astatine the Denver Police Department. "Any amounts greater than 2 ounces volition warrant an probe wherever they whitethorn beryllium taxable to apprehension and whitethorn look charges."

However, the severity of the punishment is mostly up to the jurisdiction, said Kroger, the defence attorney. In states with harsher marijuana laws, "you could beryllium facing superior clip successful jailhouse oregon prison," helium said.

Airlines' contracts of carriage, the papers that lists policies for everything from overbooked flights to mislaid baggage, authorities that intoxicated travelers can't fly.

In a signifier that's akin to however a rider trying to committee barefoot volition beryllium denied boarding, airlines tin garbage to let a lawsuit to get connected the level if, according to Delta's rules, for example, "the passenger's behaviour is disorderly, abusive oregon violent, oregon the rider appears to beryllium intoxicated oregon nether the power of drugs."