The Banana Peel Project

From a recent article in the Oakland Tribune:

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.”

Isn’t it nice when our well-being depends on the goodwill of law enforcement officers? Aren’t these people supposed to be enforcers rather than arbiters of ethics and morals? Isn’t this the definition of a police state?

If this is what happens in the space between competing forms of legality–if in the absence of juridical clarity, life and limb depend on the choices of individual officers–then maybe we need to hurry up and get a new system in place.

NOTE (added 10/21/09 at 9:47 a.m. PST): If anyone knows the whereabouts of (or has access to) that three-page document specifying the specific policy of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, please let me know!