DRUG SEIZURES AT AIRPORT UP, BUT ARRESTS THERE DROP

What should happen when someone is caught with a small amount of illegal drugs?

Travelers caught with illegal drugs at Nashville International Airport are
allowed to go free without arrest about half the time, recent statistics show.

In the past four years, airport screeners and airport police found an
increasing number of people with illegal drugs - a side effect of searches
for weapons, bombs and other illegal items that ramped up after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, records and interviews with airport
police show.

Chief Duane McGray, who heads the airport's Department of Public Safety,
said his officers were using more discretion as the intense bag searches
continue and his officers encounter small amounts of marijuana.

McGray would prefer that his officers be available to protect the public
from more serious threats, rather than spending hours writing reports and
in court for minor marijuana crimes, he said yesterday.

''Our primary responsibility is airport security,'' McGray said. ''We have
to make judgments about where we put our resources.''

Before 9/11, airport security workers weren't scouring every bag headed
onto the airplanes.

Since the federal government has taken over the screening process, though,
each bag is searched through a series of X-ray machines, hand searches and
swabbing for explosive materials, McGray said.

When a federal screener looking through a bag finds illegal drugs, McGray's
police force is called to investigate.

His officers recently used discretion when federal screeners found two
marijuana cigarettes in a bag checked at curbside by then-Williamson County
middle school principal Doug Crosier and his wife.

Federal screeners from the Transportation Security Administration
discovered a green Salem cigarette box with two joints inside. The Crosiers
told airport police they had no knowledge of the marijuana, according to
the police report.

Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, such marijuana probably would have gone
through without notice, McGray said.

Police allowed Crosier, who has since retired from Grassland Middle School,
and his wife to continue on their trip, and wrote a report. Airport police
checked for any arrest histories through the National Crime Information
Center, where crime data are stored. Neither had a previous arrest, McGray
said.

In Crosier's case, police decided to send the Williamson County school
district a copy of the incident report rather than make an arrest, McGray
said. Any punishment by the school district would have been more severe
than if the case had gone through the judicial system, he said.

Airport police probably would not have forwarded an incident report to the
employer of a person whose job does not involve overseeing children, McGray
said. He said he believed Crosier was treated more severely than other
people who are caught with minor amounts of marijuana.

Crosier retired amid an investigation into the matter by the Williamson
County school district.

''If the person is in a position of public trust involving children, the
employer probably has a higher trust in protecting those children,'' McGray
said.

He said anyone caught with hard drugs such as cocaine or methamphetamines
would be arrested and charged with a crime. Also, anyone who has a prior
arrest record would be charged, even if he or she were caught with minor
amounts of marijuana, McGray said.