California legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2018 and it has resulted in some unintended consequences, one of which is a massive surge in arrests at LAX airport for drug trafficking.
According to arrest records obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the number of individuals apprehended for trafficking has risen 166 percent.
One of the reasons that traffickers have been emboldened to fly with weed is that they only face a light punishment if captured.
"This is normal procedure for these guys, and I would say 29 out of 30 times they make it through without a problem," Bill Kroger Jr., a 20-year criminal defense lawyer who specializes in marijuana cases, told the Los Angeles Times.
Officials at LAX noted that they have encountered an increase in apprehensions for small amounts of pot brought onboard for personal use as well as checked luggage packed to the gills with marijuana.
"We intercept large quantities of marijuana regularly," said Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office to the Los Angeles Times. "We find it in about 50-pound quantities … the carry-on rate for luggage. I would imagine we're only intercepting some of it, not all of it."
A saturated pot market in California is making trafficking weed outside of the state a necessity for growers who want to make money. However, while it may be legal to use marijuana in the state for recreational use, it is not legal to transport the drug through airports that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, which still views pot as a Schedule 1 drug-the same as heroin.
Projections show that there is no end in sight to the illegal trafficking of marijuana out of California and that the black market, created in the wake of legalization and market oversaturation, will continue to grow and that arrests at the airport will continue to increase.
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