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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for the last few months has been seizing state-legal marijuana from licensed cannabis operators as they pass through New Mexico’s interior border checkpoints. Cannabis business leaders are now calling on the Biden administration to demand the seizures come to a halt.
Matt Kennicott, CEO and co-founder of cannabis industry association The Plug, recently sent a letter to the state’s congressional delegates that was signed by industry leaders calling for the CBP policy to be amended to allow state-licensed weed operators with proper documentation to pass through checkpoints unmolested.
“I think this industry contributes so much to the state—not just in terms of taxes, but in terms of helping deliver medicine to people and getting them well,” says Kennicott. “So we want folks to know that they may have issues with all of that and more if we don’t get this Border Patrol policy changed.”
Kennicott is encouraging the public to sign a petition that will be sent to the New Mexico congressional delegation. The petition requests that the delegation advocate to amend Border Patrol policies to accommodate legal cannabis operations in New Mexico, support measures to ensure that operators who have suffered losses due to seizures are either compensated financially or have their products returned and facilitate dialogue between industry stakeholders and relevant federal agencies to develop solutions that protect legal cannabis operations.
New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ben Lewinger says he’s trying to schedule talks with lawmakers but is hearing that the issue needs to go to President Joe Biden, “Which I agree with,” says Lewinger. “But I also think that it’s easy to forget the Congress is the more powerful branch of our federal government. So we’re going to keep pushing.”
“I think the issue will be resolved,” says Lewinger. “I don’t think it will necessarily be resolved tomorrow, or even next month.” Lewinger says that the nature of each state’s interactions with the CBP seem to be based on the directives of that area’s local CBP leader. “I think that it would be pretty easy for the president to address it,” he says. “I’m just not sure how quickly that will happen.”
Most of the state’s congressional delegation has weighed in on the issue as well.
Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury tells The Paper. that “this is a problem that we must address.”
“While [CBP] agents are simply doing their job under federal law, the confiscation of this amount of cannabis is detrimental for small business owners, their workers, and their families. Many entrepreneurs in New Mexico are able to thrive thanks to the cannabis industry, and until cannabis is legalized at the Federal level, we must work with CPB to protect the livelihoods of New Mexicans.”
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) told reporters that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the CBP, should focus on stopping fentanyl trafficking instead of seizing marijuana that is being transported in compliance with state law.
Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s office sent this statement to The Paper.: “This issue has been raised with the Congressman and his office is looking into it. congressman Vasquez believes that the federal government should respect New Mexico law. Congressman Vasquez is also a co-sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, which would support the legal cannabis businesses throughout our state.”
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat, did not respond to requests for comment from The Paper.
Last week, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the founding co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, commented on the New Mexico seizures, telling reporters that the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to protect states from federal interference in their cannabis policies. He said that Biden needs to step in and issue guidance to the CBP “to prevent this type of infringement from happening again.”
Lewinger says these seizures can have a dramatically negative impact on businesses that lose their products, but they also have downstream effects for other businesses involved.
Impact Farms was one such business to feel the sting of seizures even though they were not directly involved in an incident. The company takes raw cannabis flower from producers and processes it into pre-rolls that are sold in stores with the help of a hi-tech rolling machine.
Ari Greenwald, co-founder and CEO of Impact Farms, was waiting on a shipment of 15 pounds of cannabis flower from Top Crop producers in February when he heard the bad news: The delivery had been seized by Border Patrol agents.
“I didn’t know what to do,” says Greenwald. “I had to figure out something right then. I had to pay February’s rent. I have expenses. I had a week-and-a-half booked for that one order on my schedule, and suddenly, it was just open. I had to rearrange everything and figure out how to pay my bills.”
Greenwald says his company was lucky that he was able to defer payments on a loan and stay afloat.
“Not everyone has access to the same resources that we do,” he says. “This could have easily been the end of us.”
Greenwald says the seizure could affect the deal Impact Farms has with Top Crop.
“We’re waiting on replacement material for those pre-rolls if they ever feel comfortable enough to send product past that checkpoint again,” he says.
He also says the seizure will influence whether the company continues to do business with operators in the southern part of the state.
“When we think about future plans, we have to consider that checkpoint as it is right now. Do we even want to mess with anything south of that checkpoint?”
Greenwald says the option to transport his rolling machine to the south presents its own set of problems. “What if the government seizes that on our way back?” he asks. “We’re set up to run out of a trailer, but it’s not worth jeopardizing our entire investment.”
Greenwald says he worries about other small operators.
“If we didn’t have supporting family, it would have meant not having groceries on the table,” he says. “There are a lot of companies in the same boat. There could be a lot of small operators that the federal government just put out of business.”