Posted on 09/14/2018 1:31:17 PM PDT by Decombobulator
WASHINGTON—Canadians will be barred from entering the United States for smoking marijuana legally, for working in Canada’s legal marijuana industry and for investing in legal Canadian marijuana companies, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official says.
Todd Owen, who spoke to the U.S. website Politico, said the U.S. does not plan to change its border policies to account for Canada’s marijuana legalization, which takes effect on Oct. 17.
“We don’t recognize that as a legal business,” said Owen, executive assistant commissioner for the office of field operations.
Owen’s comments corroborated anecdotal reports that have accumulated over the course of the year. Canadians with links to the nascent legal industry, including venture capitalist Sam Znaimer and the chief executive of a B.C. agricultural machinery company, have already been given lifetime entry bans.
Owen said border officers will not begin asking every Canadian about their marijuana use.
He said, however, that officers might ask if “other questions lead there,” or “if there is a smell coming from the car,” or if a dog detects marijuana residue.
Owen did not specify how much equity a Canadian has to hold in a cannabis company to be denied entry. Scott Bernstein, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, said he is troubled by the lack of clarity.
Thousands of Canadians have shares in cannabis companies, which are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
“They’re investing in a completely legal industry in Canada, but it happens to be the cannabis industry …. That person who owns a mutual fund and maybe doesn’t even know where their money is going, are they going to be covered as well?” Bernstein said.
Bernstein, who also expressed concern about U.S. profiling of people stereotyped as likely marijuana users, said the Canadian government should negotiate with the U.S. at least to secure entry for workers and investors.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that he does not think he has the right to press the U.S. on its admission policy.
“Every country has the right to judge who gets to come into their borders or not. I wouldn’t presume to have any other country tell me how or who we can let into Canada. And I certainly won’t work to assume or impress upon the U.S. who they have to let in or not,” Trudeau told a CBC radio station in Manitoba.
“But there is no question that we are working with U.S. officials; they have legalized marijuana in a number of their states, and we’re trying to make sure that travel between our two countries (is) not disrupted.”
While nine states and Washington, D.C. now allow the recreational use of marijuana, the U.S. federal government continues to consider it illegal.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has sought to crack down on the drug.
An admission of any past drug use is grounds for a lifetime ban from the U.S., although some banned people can successfully apply for waivers.
Travellers can refuse to answer a U.S. officer’s questions; their silence may be used to deny them entry that day, but they can avoid a lifetime ban.
Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer in the state of Washington who represents people dealing with cannabis-related issues, said he did not think that an average investor in cannabis stock would be barred from the U.S. Only people “more actively involved in managing their assets,” such as Znaimer, or employees of cannabis-linked venture capital firms, are likely to face such a proscription.
But nobody knows for sure.
“I’m doing a booming business on consultations with Canadians, businesspeople, involved in the cannabis industry, whether it’s in Canada or the U.S. They’re scared,” he said.
Shares of several cannabis companies declined after the Politico report was published.
So it is okay to prevent Canadians from coming here based on what they’ve smoked, worked, or invested in? But the USA cannot prevent anyone coming here from South of the border regardless of the obvious harm they intend to inflict on our life, liberty, and property?
Is this satire?
Kind of ridiculous when you consider that most western states now have some form of legalized marijuana, in fact they moved to that years before Canada plans to do. And disclaimer, I am not a pot user, investor or supporter, would prefer non-legalization especially after seeing the spike in highway accidents in WA and CO.
And it’s not just dispensary workers, cannabis growers and cannabis users who are being denied entry. Jay Evans, CEO of agricultural equipment manufacturer Keirton Inc., was crossing into the U.S. in early April along with two employees, both engineers with Nexus passes and spotless criminal records. They’d intended to meet with an American company to begin design work on a new machine that would streamline labour costs for cannabis producers. “We had not yet designed the product, we had not yet marketed the product and we’d not yet sold the product,” Evans said in an interview.
Based on the logic of the Keirton employees being denied entry into the U.S., here is what I want to know… one of the most significant resources that marijuana producers require is a reliable supply of electricity. Does this mean that all people who work for an electrical utility supplying electricity to a cannabis producer will be barred from entry because they are “aiding and abetting”? In what way is this different what the Keirton company provides? How far does CBP want to extend this?
just protecting the mexican cartel operations.
And Stay out!
No, only seven states have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes.
It is a dumb idea for the same reason it was in the 1970s -- it is increasing traffic fatalities and negligent deaths.
Don’t we already have enough professional cannabis partakers?
29 States have Medical Marijuana as legal.
Will they have to wear a big red letter C on their foreheads?
There is a huge difference between legalizing marijuana for medical purposes and legalizing it for recreational purposes.
“after seeing the spike in highway accidents in WA and CO.”
Stoners run amuck! Serves them right!!
CO is just below the national average in traffic fatalities. WA has one of the lowest rates in the country.
https://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview/2016
Evidence?
It’s not the comparison of number of fatalities to other states....it’s the INCREASE/DECREASE in fatalities since the introduction of legalized weed into those two states alone. Thought you’d pull a fast one, huh?
Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows - https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3280359/posts
So you want to assign a causal relationship, while ignoring all other data. I doubt you’d accept such junk science methods from a global warmer.
Explain why California has remained among the lowest in fatalities among the states, despite having quasi-legal pot since 1997.
This is CA, the land of sanctuaries, open borders, gay marriage, Hollywood, etc. IOW, a swamp that rivals DC. If there is one state that should have seen carnage from pot, it’s CA. The fact that its highways remained safe casts grave doubt on the OP’s case for a causal relationship.
If you want to get on the fast track to stupidity, smoke weed on a regular basis.
You either want the laws of the land to be upheld or you don’t...every brick in the wall is a useful brick ...
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/25/colorado-marijuana-traffic-fatalities/
The number of drivers involved in fatal crashes in Colorado who tested positive for marijuana has risen sharply each year since 2013, more than doubling in that time, federal and state data show.
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/02/20/colorado-traffic-deaths-2017/
Traffic deaths in Colorado reached highest number in more than a decade in 2017 while number fell slightly across U.S.
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