THERE’S A RIGHT most pot smokers cherish with particular
fervor—not the right to party, but the right to privacy. And when
a Portland FedEx employee opened a package destined for New York,
Robert Stinnett’s privacy went out the window, he says.

Stinnett wanted to send a package to upstate New York overnight,
then changed his mind when he saw the cost. So he decided to send it
with two-day delivery, for $55.21. That’s when the employee at FedEx
became suspicious. Why would Stinnett spend so much to send something
that he stated was valued at only $100? So after Stinnett left, the
employee opened up Stinnett’s package and found five ounces of
marijuana—worth around $1,500. The employee tipped off the
police, who arrested Stinnett on delivery charges.

If a customer’s personal spending decisions are raising red flags,
what’s to stop an employee from opening any package valued under $100,
wonders Spencer Hahn, Stinnett’s lawyer. At the very least, the
employee could have let Stinnett know they were going to look through
the package, Hahn says. Instead, they waited until he had paid them and
left before opening it. Hahn says the practice would make him very
nervous if he were a FedEx lawyer.

“Rather than trying to avoid something illegal, they took his money,
rifled through his belongings, and called the police on him,” Hahn
says. “There’s no telling how many packages they have opened.”

FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey says FedEx has a “very involved and
extensive training program” for its employees to spot suspicious
packages, but repeatedly declined to go into detail about what FedEx
looks for, or how many packages get opened.

“We have the right to open any package that we deem to be
suspicious,” McCluskey says. “We don’t tolerate the illegal use of our
system.”

While FedEx remains mum on its search practices, the United States
Postal Service (USPS) relies on a mix of training, official procedure,
and honesty. Ron Anderson, a USPS customer relations coordinator here
in Portland, says customers are asked a series of questions that help
postal workers get a general idea of whether or not a package is
dangerous or illegal. If it’s shipped standard mail, a postal worker
can open a suspicious package. But if the customer is sending the
package first class, priority, or express, postal workers must call a
postal investigator to check out the package.

Of course, the FedEx employee’s suspicions were proven correct when
he found pot in the packaging. Doesn’t matter, says Hahn. “It doesn’t
justify the invasion of privacy.”

10 replies on “Don’t FedEx Your Pot”

  1. Okay, Sean, that is a great story. Respect.

    Please follow up on it — the reporting on this has the potential for award-winning stuff, I think.

  2. WOW, i always thought FED-EX was eefin’ shadey, but i didn’t think they were informats too! Fuck them! But that’s what one gets for using a PRIVATE parcel service. Just stick to US mail, always!

  3. So if it was someone’s legal medicine it could’ve been tampered with by a vindictive or malice filled Fed-Ex employee, or even by accident? Or if it was food it could have been tainted? It seems like shipping anything is a dangerous idea, no more Christmas cookies? And now we have a better understanding as to how stuff we ship gets damaged in shipment, it wasn’t dropped, and it’s not new, not the food with a bite out of it, not the panties in an opened wrapper, nor the…?

  4. The citing of the $100 insurance as a red flag by the FedEx employees is completely bogus. $100 is the default (i. e. no extra charge) insurance on US FedEx and UPS shipments. I do a lot of shipping, and I can tell you that the decision about delivery urgency and the decision about insurance amounts are entirely unrelated. In fact, the insurance amount decision includes many factors beyond even the value of the shipped goods (risk, perceived difficulty of collecting in the event of loss or damage, etc.) There was some other motivation to open and investigate the package. Perhaps this criminal (the FedEx employee, not Stinnett) routinely stole shipped goods, but considered the pot too risky to keep. Perhaps DEA or some local tribe of donut grazers was passing tips to FedEx, but FedEx doesn’t want to admit that kind of complicity.

  5. What it comes down to you dumb potheads is that FedEx has the right to open and search any shipment, because they are a PRIVATE company and you agree to the carriage contract that states that!

  6. If I were on a jury, I would have no problem in awarding the plaintiff $200 million in damages to send an unmistakable message to FedEx.

  7. Yeah, the potheads are dumb. Right. Except its us pot smokers who are winning the war on drugs. Figure that one out, dipshit.

  8. The fact that WE’re (this dying country) still prosecuting people over pot defies ALL sense & logic. So i guess this guy is facing federal charges which means YEARS in prison. It just goes to prove that the gears are set & the game is rigged AGAINST your average citizen!

    If you’re a cop, politician, priest, CEO, etc. you can do whatever you what, murder whomever, steal whatever you want, doesn’t matter.

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