If you fly frequently, or have a sanity-threatening allergy to long lines, you're likely familiar with the TSA’s “Pre✓” (as in “pre-check”) program, allowing domestic travelers to skip some of the lengthy and dreaded airport screening process. Users can keep on their coats, shoes, and belts and forgo removing laptops and liquids from their luggage. As of February 2018, the TSA estimated 93 percent of enrollees waited five minutes or less for complete their entire security process.

The program is one of the included benefits of the Department of Homeland Security’s Global Entry Program, which, for $100, also offers fingerprint-reading kiosks for returning “low risk” international travelers. Applicants must pass a stringent background and security check from the Feds, which Aaron Herzberg, a Los Angeles-based attorney, had done a few years back.

Herzberg had enjoyed using it over a dozen times a year until March 2018, when he received word from the TSA while at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that his status had been revoked. The reason given in a letter from the TSA: “We have a very strict ‘zero tolerance for drugs’ policy and he is a partner with CalCan (sic) holdings which owns medical marijuana businesses…”

As reported by The Cannifornian, Herzberg is co-owner of the two Bud and Bloom medical cannabis dispensaries in Santa Ana, California, and, no, he does not travel with cannabis. TSA yanked his approved status based solely on his involvement in a regulated and taxed industry, which has existed in California for more than 20 years.

Of course, the feds had no problem taking Bud and Bloom’s tax money, even though they won't allow him to open a bank account or claim legitimate business tax deductions available to any other taxpaying business.

So a heads up if you work in the cannabis industry and are considering applying for the TSA Pre✓ program. This doesn't mean you will be rejected outright, but does indicate that you can be booted out with no warning if your work life violates the TSA's “zero tolerance policy for drugs.” I spoke with a couple of friends in the industry who suggested enrolling ONLY in the Pre✓ program if you don't have extensive international travel planned, as it's only $85 to apply—they say they have yet to have their status screwed with by the TSA.