Wanna fly with dank? Go from Oakland Airport

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May 15, 2002
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#1
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_13579137?source=most_viewed

Oakland International Airport may be the nation's only airport with a specific policy letting users of medical marijuana travel with the drug.

The policy is spelled out in a three-page document quietly enacted last year by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. It states that if deputies determine someone is a qualified patient or primary caregiver as defined by California law and has eight ounces or less of the drug, he or she can keep it and board the plane.

Deputies warn the pot-carrying passengers that they may be committing a felony upon arrival when they set foot in a jurisdiction where medical marijuana is not recognized. But they say they don't call ahead to alert authorities on the other end.

"We never have. We're certainly within our right to, but we never have," said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the sheriff's office. "Our notification of the passengers is for their own safety and well-being."

California voters approved medical marijuana use in 1996, while federal law still bans all possession and use.

But Oakland attorney Robert Raich notes the Code of Federal Regulations says a prohibition on operating a civil aircraft with knowledge that there is marijuana aboard doesn't apply to carrying marijuana that's "authorized by or under any Federal or State statute."

The federal Transportation Security Administration does the screening and when marijuana — or any suspected contraband — is found, the sheriff's deputies are summoned.

Low profile
Oakland's airport policy was enacted in February 2008, but Raich said he didn't want to publicize it until recently lest the Bush administration change federal regulations, or lest it become an issue in Obama administration drug officials' confirmation hearings.

"All other airports in medical cannabis states should have similar policies but they don't," he said, adding that he hears San Francisco International and Los Angeles International airports are relatively kind to medical marijuana users while airports in Burbank, Ontario and San Diego are not.

Raich, who has seen two of his medical marijuana cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and has taught Oakland Police cadets about medical marijuana issues, said medical marijuana users generally didn't have much trouble when Oakland Police used to patrol inside the airport terminals. But that changed when the Alameda County Sheriff's Office took over in mid-2007. That summer TSA screeners referred to deputies a traveling medical-marijuana user from Washington state.

"The sheriff's deputies so harassed this person, it was heart-wrenching," Raich said. "They took his medicine, they broke his bong, they took his edibles. They were threatening him."
'Pinball machine'

Raich said he found that the sheriff's office was unwilling to change its policy. So he consulted various officials including those at the Port of Oakland, which owns and operates the airport.

"I felt like a ball in a pinball machine," he said. "I felt like I'd talked to every single employee at the port and they all seemed sympathetic but they all told me the same thing: 'That's not our policy "... that's the sheriff doing that on his own.' "

Raich eventually went to the Alameda County counsel's office.
That office "finally told (Sheriff Greg Ahern) he had to comply with California law whether he liked it or not, and only then did he adopt a policy," Raich said.

"Greg Ahern is out of touch with the people of California who voted for Prop. 215 and medical cannabis in 1996 and have continued to support it by wide margins ever since," Raich said. Sheriff's spokesman Nelson said the sheriff "neither supports nor opposes the medical marijuana law.

"He's had no position on that," Nelson said. "He's just trying to do the best he can when a state law conflicts with a federal law."
 

Gas One

Moderator
May 24, 2006
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Downtown, Pittsburg. Southeast Dago.
#3
i personally refuse to fly without weed. if the plane goes down, im atleast gonna be high as fuck before i die. if you happen to find my eigth next to my dick, im gonna be like

1)"ha ha" and expect you to let me through with my weed like u aint really see it
1.5) if you hold it up in the air imma put yo hand down like "SHHH FOOL!"
2) take my weed, turn around, miss flight, get on next plane with weed stashed better and no metal in pocket this time
2.5) see them bring the dog out, be like "NIGGA FUCK YO DOBERMAN ANGER NIGGA, NOW!!" and get arrested

edit: unless you at oklahoma city airport. you better be on your p's and q's they so bored theyll go through your bags unroll your socks boxers squeeze your toothpaste out and make you strip in the back just because you wore a metal belt.
 

Gas One

Moderator
May 24, 2006
39,741
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Downtown, Pittsburg. Southeast Dago.
#6
the bay is always in the forefront of things. ahead by 10 years, trendsetters mayne
i agree, mayor willie brown once yelled out "NO ONE WILL BE ARRESTED FOR POT SMOKING TODAY" in union square and a crowd of thousands cheered

i dont even know if i had weed on me that moment but beyond the time they left a rolled blunt in my belongings in jail at 650 bryant, id have to say yall really are ahead

plus my possession charge got thrown out

id move back there one day, if i ever wanted to go through depressing weather and 'city shit' (aka seeing black girls beat up a 50 year old chinese woman for shit talk at the bus, and step past them to get on the 36 like it never happened)

great place to live if you think life is boring, horrible place to raise children, atleast straight, sane ones. (maybe sausalito/daly city/richmond/sunset tho)


what yall DO NOT have a hold on, is that fuckin gay parade, ill be damned if im EVER in sf again on that day.
 

drewski.kalonji

Shark Finning & Grinning
May 17, 2002
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Murky Bay Waters, CA
#7
haha we love our dank up here. i remember passing by city hall in santa cruz and the mayor was outside handing out chunky eighths. heres a short article about it:


Santa Cruz Mayor Defends Medical Mariuana Giveaway
By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Sat Sep 21, 2002 at 04:11:18 PM EST


Christopher Krohn, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, CA explains Why I'm Fighting Federal Drug Laws From City Hall in today's New York Times.

"How did I, a mayor of a small town in California, wind up in a tug of war with the Drug Enforcement Agency? This week, I stood in front of Santa Cruz's city hall as a local group that provides medical marijuana went about its weekly task of distributing the drug to the sick and dying."

"My story begins on the morning of Sept. 5 when approximately 30 men, dressed in military fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, descended on a small cooperative farm run by the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in northern Santa Cruz County, about 65 miles south of San Francisco. They were pulling up organically grown marijuana plants."

Mayor Krohn astutely observes:

"The government is fighting a losing battle. In the states where medical marijuana has been on the ballot, it has received overwhelming approval from voters. Canada and Great Britain recently approved the medical use of marijuana and plan to have the government grow and distribute it. "

"As medical costs skyrocket, medical marijuana is a cost-effective way to treat people with chronic pain. Most of all, making medical marijuana available is an act of common sense and compassion. "


oh and i totally agree with gas that frisco is a great place to live and experience new things but not the best to raise a family around.
 
Sep 12, 2005
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#11
yeah I saw this on the news on friday, they said both oak and sfo allow 8oz. I wonder how they go about verifying if your a patient, do you have to pack your card with your bud? I always just check that shit in.
 
Jan 28, 2005
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#16
edit: unless you at oklahoma city airport. you better be on your p's and q's they so bored theyll go through your bags unroll your socks boxers squeeze your toothpaste out and make you strip in the back just because you wore a metal belt.
Oh for sure fuck the oklahoma city airport! i have family there and that security is some intense shit every time. i walk through there and feel like i'm doing something wrong by breathing as i go through the metal detector.
 

Mars

Serial Killer / Rapist
Sep 14, 2002
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Pittsburg, CA
www.madinsanity.com
#20
WOW. I totally get it now. I flew out of Oakland with a nice bag in my pocket, and got searched and the dude from TSA found my weed, scanned it in the X-Ray and gave it right back. I was dumbfounded. I never understood why that went down like it did and I didnt ask any questions.