  The progenitor stars of stripped-envelope high-velocity supernovae (Ic-BL
SNe) can explode inside a dense circumstellar medium (CSM) that extends out to
many times the progenitor radius. This complicates the question of whether all
Ic-BL SNe harbor a jet, which can tunnel through the star and be viewed on-axis
as a long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB). More specifically, a sufficiently
dense CSM might "choke" the jet, redistributing its energy quasi-spherically.
In this study, we numerically calculate the CSM density necessary for
jet-choking. For typical GRBs, we determine the jet is not choked in the CSM
unless $\rho r^2 > 4 \times 10^{19}$ g/cm; this requires several solar masses
of CSM to be situated within $10^{13}$ cm of the progenitor, a much higher
density than any CSM observed. We conclude that typical GRB jets are not choked
in the CSM. However, in many cases the CSM has sufficient mass to decelerate
the jet to a modest Lorentz factor ($\Gamma \sim 10$), which should lead to a
long coasting phase for the jet, observable as a long plateau (potentially up
to a few days) in the afterglow light curve. For extreme cases of low-energy
GRBs in a high-mass CSM, the jet will decelerate to nonrelativistic velocities,
causing it to spread modestly to a larger opening angle ($\theta_j \approx 20$
degrees) before breaking out of the CSM. Even in these extreme examples, the
jet does not have time to redistribute its energy quasi-spherically in the CSM
before breakout.
