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.
The graph at https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/26/colorado-roadway-deaths-2017-2/ shows that Colorado traffic deaths have been rising since 2011 - three years before legalization.
As long as people from islamoterror supporting countries can still come in, eh?
So pot use in CO was declining from 2011 to 2014? We’ll have to see if there is an acceleration in the graph after 2014.
Traffic fatalities have also increased in Washington state since pot was legalized. They increased in states in the 1970s the decriminalized pot.
Only someone completely doesn't realize that more legal ways to get high will result in more negligent deaths. Drug legalization of any kind diminishes everyone's quality of life.
I'll explain it in small words - you can move your lips while you read if it helps: traffic deaths were rising both before and after legalization; since legalization clearly didn't cause the former rise, there's no sound basis for claiming it caused the latter.
Move those goal posts - from legalization to use.
??? Moving goalposts? You are the one that said traffic fatalities started going higher in 2011 (implying pot use was uninvolved). You need to cross-ref traffic crashes and pot use stats for usable data. As far as “use vs. legalization” goes, legalization would naturally lead to more use, no? (Especially in the 1st few years of “rec. legalization”).
Name something that occurred in 2011 that resulted in traffic violations occurring. If you can't, you have no point.
In Colorado, Washington state and states that decriminalized marijuana, the pattern consistently shows traffic fatalities increasing after marijuana legalization/decriminalization.
Again, only idiot or liberal can't figure out -- more citizens intoxicated = more negligent deaths.
It's not suprising Reagan opposed drug and marijuana legalization while most prominent liberals today support legalizing marijuana.
But, someone has to lose their life because pot ends up being legalized, I pray it is someone that supported marijuana legalization.
Which they were.
(implying pot use was uninvolved).
Wrong - implying legalization, the subject of the post I replied to, was uninvolved.
legalization would naturally lead to more use, no?
It's a theory, which like any theory needs to be backed by hard data.
Name something that occurred in 2011 that resulted in traffic violations occurring. If you can't, you have no point.
Simply wrong.
In Colorado, Washington state and states that decriminalized marijuana, the pattern consistently shows traffic fatalities increasing after marijuana legalization/decriminalization.
You've provided evidence only for Colorado - and there, the rise predated legalization.
more citizens intoxicated = more negligent deaths.
No evidence that legalization = more citizens intoxicate.
Next up: barring Canadians who listen to rock and roll records!
Actually, we’re going to get “only” 30,000 camel jockeys next year.
A little data is out there, but going to be hard to prove much regarding CO and cannabis impaired accidents, as CO state government didn’t really track MM use/sales from 2000 thru 2014:
https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/revenue/colorado-marijuana-sales-reports
https://www.codot.gov/news/documents/safety-press-conference-boards-jan-31-2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cannabis_laws_in_the_United_States#States
I don’t really have an axe to grind on this topic, just pointing out that your “...traffic deaths started increasing in 2011 before legalization...” point isn’t based on “cannabis use vs. traffic fatalities” data either...as we don’t know the MM use (or rec. use for that matter) stats from 2000 to 2014.
I am generally a “live & let live” person with Libertarian leaning tendencies, but the days of that being possible pretty much died when the government starting paying for a large percentage of people’s health care. I rarely hear Libertarians talking about societal/government issues/impacts when they discuss unrestricted freedom of drug use. Legal use of anything you want is fine, but a side effect would have to be substantial stiffening of DWI laws (alcohol users/drivers are still getting a much too easy ride on this), increased government spending on the court system/traffic cops/family court, and the biggest obstacle, government getting out of paying for health care all together (including Medicare). Unless things like that happen the Libertarian “freedom utopia” cannot happen. “With great freedom comes great (personal/societal) responsibility”.
NobleFree: you ever check out Stefan Molyneux’s YouTube or sites?
P.S. I found the 50% cut in MM sales after rec. legalization in CO kind of humorous! (1st link above). I guess half the MM users were suddenly “cured” all at once! ;-)
I don't points I can't back up. Traffic fatalities involing marijuana more than doubled from 2011 to 2016 in Washington state:
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/traffic/article166826757.html
Fatalities involving marijuana-impaired drivers on the rise
Pot advocates care no more about the truth than Hillary Clinton.
I'm on board with that.
increased government spending on the court system/traffic cops/family court, and the biggest obstacle, government getting out of paying for health care all together (including Medicare).
Is government regulation of adults' diets justifiable until/unless government gets out of paying for health care for diet-related medical conditions? I say no.
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