janetdoe

Thanks! This is personally upsetting to me because I took my grandparents to Sydney last month, and my grandfather had to take two of his nitro pills in the SYD airport en route to baggage claim. We would have had to spend a lot of our vacation in the hospital if TSA had seized his pills in LAX, not to mention the nightmare of trying to obtain health care via a travel insurance policy...

Luckily he was carrying them in an unlabeled vial when he went through security, unlike Chollie.

petaluma1

What's updated on the website? That nitro pills are allowed or that no screener is allowed to ever take someone's prescription meds away?

FLgrr

That statement needs to include the procedure/process to prove it is valid. That is where the fight will be.

FliesWay2Much

No, we shouldn't be "proving" anything to these people. Further, they shouldn't be telling us how much we need for our flight. The next TSA clerk who plays doctor needs to be made an example of.

chollie

Medical liquids >3.4 ounce that can be cleared by a strip test.

Medical nitro can't be cleared (I was told) because a more stringent rule applies: nitro is a banned substance in any quantity, any form (like C4).

WillCAD

Actually, if I recall your story, you said the screener kept telling you "No explosives. No exceptions."

Of course, as we've discussed before, nitro pills, sprays, and patches are not explosive in any way, shape, or form, and so are not banned.

petaluma1

Prove what is valid? The prescription? That's none of the TSA's business. If meds are in a bottle with a prescription affixed, then it flies. Full stop.

petaluma1

^^

chollie

Yup. That was the problem: nitro pills fall under two categories. My pills were not denied under a medical rule because of quantity or an unlabelled container or even because a swab test came back positive (it did not). My pills were confiscated because of the zero tolerance rule that applies to explosives, and the fact that in some minds, any and all forms of nitro are a banned explosive substance.

I wonder what would happen if someone brought through a 1-pound-bag of fertilizer that swabbed positive?

I've never heard of someone being challenged about pills, although I'm sure it's happened. ("Can you prove these pills aren't ecstasy? Why do you have so many?") If TSA ever started enforcing a requirement for pills to be in originally labelled containers with a copy of the prescription, there really will be chaos. Older folks who put things in pill keepers, for example, the problem of verifying that what is in the properly labelled pill bottle is what the label says (although some prescription labels now include an image of the pill), the problem that any prescription could be forged - impossible.

petaluma1

Your pills were confiscated, Chollie, because you ran into a screener who was dumber than a stump with supervisors who were also just as dumb and/or didn't have the cojones to overrule the screener.

Paul56

I have never been challenged about my pills... much less them paying
any attention to them at all.

However, I am sufficiently paranoid now that I leave my pills in the
original containers.

I used to repackage them to save space over those huge honkin'
space wasters the pharmacies sometimes use.

Last week I had to return one of those to the pharmacy for
repackaging into smaller containers... they kindly obliged.

I should note I do not carry nitros, but perhaps the pills I do carry
if broken down by a mortar & pestle and combined would result in
something explosive.

Interestingly enough, when I lookup "mortar and pestle" on the TSA
site it claims we can take them via either carry-on or checked.

TSA might want to give this one a little more thought. LOL

YKF

They would never state that a screener is not allowed to take any medication. It would take away from the illusion that TSO's have unquestionable law enforcement power.

janetdoe

I wonder in that case if you could insist that they call a bomb appraisal officer (BAO) to verify that the pills were indeed explosive? Might be a way to shortcut a chain of idiots and get to someone who is capable of critical thought.

They had to call a BAO once when I had some epsom salts in my carryon. Apparently it color-codes as something scary when it goes through the x-ray machine. I'm guessing the fact that it's mostly water (MgSO4*6H2O) makes it code as a gel, even though it's solid, so it blew their minds. Pun intended.