No, TSA doesn’t look for weed, they look for explosives. Customs looks for weed. Never take weed on an international flight. That said it’s quite easy to travel domestically with it. Grinder just made a bad assumption.
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They may not be carefully checking for weed, but you will get in trouble if they stumble across it.
A bunch of years ago a Portland Trailblazer got in trouble for having a somewhat large amount of weed wrapped in aluminum foil in his pocket as he walked through the metal detector. 
I’ve heard that, while they are nominally looking for explosives, if they see anything of note, they will often make a call to other agencies and turn you over to them. An example includes their part in airport civil asset forfeiture. They are not allowed to take your money. But they can call their buddies, who can take your money. I assume they’re getting some sort of kickback, but that would be illegal.
It kind of depends on where you are also. For example let’s say you go to Colorado and buy marijuana products. If you get caught at the airport with those products they are legal there so no one cares. They may make you throw them away. However if you get them through security then you’re all good because no one on the other end is going to check you as you leave the airport. Edibles are very easy to transport.
Griner to be sent to a gulag penal colony for the remainder of her sentence.
This is after she lost her appeal.
Disturbing account of the conditions in the gulag where Britney Griner has been living since she lost her appeal.
CNN reports she has been released in a prisoner exchange. Paul Whelan is still imprisoned.
Thanks for the update.
Well that sucks… I guess it pays to be famous.
Also I’m pretty uneasy with the notion that we’re releasing a bona fide criminal in exchange for someone who likely did nothing wrong. Seems like we’re announcing that it’s open season on Americans traveling abroad.
If someone you care about is imprisoned in the US, simply arrest an American abroad on phony charges. Helps if they’re famous enough that a lot of Americans care about them. Seems like bad policy.
That said, I don’t know what a better answer is. Let her rot in a gulag? Send in Special Forces to bust her out?
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Just to nitpick… I thought there wasn’t too much of a question that she had been carrying a prohibited-in-Russia substance.
The problem is that the perceived severity of the offence and the punishment sought seem to be inflated (even after allowing for cultural/national differences in the perception of the acceptability of cannabis) for geopolitical reasons.
She was arrested on February 17 and released December 8, so she was (presumably wrongfully) detained for nearly 10 months.
Viktor Bout was arrested on March 6, 2008 and released on December 8, 2022, so he was rightfully detained for 14 years 9 months. He had been sentenced to 25 years in 2011. Assuming he got credit for time already served and was not eligible for parole, that means he had a little over 10 years left on his sentence.
25 years is the minimum sentence for his crime.
I thought there was tremendous question as to whether she actually did what she was accused of doing. Or rather, tremendous assumption that the charges were completely trumped up.
The state department classified her as “wrongfully detained”. If she was actually guilty then the detainment wasn’t wrongful. I feel like the state department essentially said “these charges are bogus and she didn’t do anything illegal under Russian law”.
I assume we’ll hear her side of the story in the coming weeks.
I don’t think we can discount the likelihood that the State Department was playing with geopolitics and domestic politics in its response, rather than being completely objective on the merits of the case.
(And there do seem to be other elements about her detainment that seem wrongful, like limited access to a translator / being pressured to sign Russian language documents without the benefit of a translation…)
That being said…I have been on a news diet, and I would have to admit that any public comment she made about having accidentally brought cannabis into Russia could have just been an attempt to seek mercy from otherwise trumped-up charges, rather than an acknowledgement of a real mistake.
I thought the only confession was considered to be made under duress.
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I’d agree that the confession was made under some form of duress (see my comments about the language issue, if nothing else), and I think under the circumstances it’s impossible to get objective information about what really happened.
However, the story presented by Griner’s defense team seems very plausible IMO. If Russian officials were to plant/fabricate evidence to frame her…I think they would have done a little more than the 0.7 grams she was convicted of importing.
Maybe they wanted to make it believable. 
Once she’s back in the US (the exchange happened in Abu Dhabi IIRC, so she’s presumably still in transit) and had time to hang out with her family, I presume she’ll give an interview and discuss her side.
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I’m curious what other governments are interested in arresting Viktor Bout. If he gets arrested next week by another NATO member, for example, I’ll feel a lot better about exchanging Brittney Griner for him.
And if he self-confines to Russia then that’s not the worst outcome either, I guess.
I am glad she is being released.
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