Don't Fly with Vaporizers

A few days after Christmas, I had to head to New York from Madison, WI to visit my girlfriend’s family. I recently had a sinus infection, so the Volcano was essential. I’m one of those stoners who’s virtually made a total switch from smoking to vaporizing, anyway. Hell, there’s a Volcano hidden on the cover of my book, Anarcho Grow.

I’m no dummy, either. I soaked the machine’s pieces in alcohol before leaving, the press and bag attachments. All spotless. As I waited for my bag to pass through the conveyor belt along with my jacket and shoes, I had no fear. However, I wasn’t surprised when a TSA worker said, “Let’s send it through again. Get another picture.”

They’ll take it out. I’ll explain that it’s an herb vaporizer and be on my way, I thought.

Wrong. They knew what it was, or had an idea, and searched my bag thoroughly for pot, hoping they could bring a charge. The process was taking long enough that I took a seat nearby. Twenty minutes passed before the TSA worker approached and told me the sheriff had been called. He said something quickly about paraphernalia. Something else I couldn’t make out.

“What?” I asked.

Again, he spoke quickly.

“What?”

“Nitro glycerin. It tested positive for it.”

“You’re joking?” I said.

“I never joke about my job,” he said sternly.

I waited uneasily for another twenty minutes before the sheriff arrived. The TSA employee allowed me to pack the rest of the things in my bag while the Volcano and its accoutrements were set aside. Eventually, a short chubby man wearing a crew cut and mustache over oily skin showed. He looked plucked from a stock comedy flick.

“What’s this machine?” he asked.

“A vaporizer.”

“What do you use with it?”

“Herbs, chamomile, echinacea…”

“What?” he said.

“Chamomile and Echinacea.”

“Tea?”

“The herbs can be used for tea, yes.”

He opened my grinder and inspected it. “Pretty clean,” he said. He looked at me. “You got some I.D.”

I handed him my license.

“You can take a seat over there,” he said, pointing to the chair I’d come to know.

I glanced at the clock. My plane was to board in eighteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes passed before he returned. He first spoke with a TSA agent. I heard the words “no priors,” and wondered if they’d illegally steal my machine.

The cop approached with the Volcano, its attachments, and my I.D. in a gray plastic bin. “Here,” he said.

“I’m free to go?”

“Yeah, where are you going?” he said.

“New York.”

“Visiting friends there?”

“Something like that.”

I’d been harassed by rogues who could legally do nothing. One man had even made a false claim that my luggage tested positive for explosives. All to try to bring a pot charge on me. Though it’s within one’s rights to travel with a clean Volcano, you may want to forgo it to avoid the hassle. TSA employees are after pot heads just as much terrorists. Maybe even more so.