The Transportation Security Administration's official blog announces all of the significant items confiscated by the airport security group, and there's a trend lately of people being caught trying to smuggle marijuana into the airport by stashing it in a Ziploc bag in peanut butter.
This is a horrible idea.
At least four attempts this year have been foiled by TSA agents who saw canisters and other packages hidden in a can of peanut butter. Seeing a chunk of strange matter in an x-ray of a jar of peanut butter understandably sets off a bunch of red flags.
When agents found the pot, they reported the whole situation to the proper authorities. The TSA doesn't screen for drugs specifically — they focus on guns, bombs, knives, weapons and small quantities of liquid hygiene products — but when they do find drugs, they call it in to the local authorities.
This spate of pot being concealed in peanut butter all started in February, when a passenger flying out of Oakland, California was caught concealing a baggie of marijuana in the hollowed out center of a peanut butter jar.
Evidently hearing this story but ignoring the part where the passenger was caught, one week later another passenger was caught with concealed marijuana in a peanut butter jar. The passenger was flying out of Seattle.
Then, a month later in March, a third person was caught with a suspicious container (it was full of marijuana) inside a jar of peanut butter in Salt Lake City. This time, the TSA publicly indicated that peanut butter was no match for X-ray equipment and that people should really stop trying this.
People took heed, and it wasn't until May that an innovative passenger flying out of Florence, South Carolina was caught trying to smuggle a bag of marijuana in a jar of raspberry jam. The TSA then emphasized that "an organic substance stuffed in a jar of jelly looks odd."
By late July, smugglers were back to peanut butter. On the 27th the TSA blog reported that another passenger tried to conceal a bag of marijuana in a jar of peanut butter. This time, it was a passenger trying to fly out of Seattle and the peanut butter was creamy store brand.
What's the moral? Don't bring marijuana on planes. And if you try, whoever told you to stuff it in a jar of peanut butter is wrong, that just makes it easy to spot on the x-ray monitor.
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