A situation developing between U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and New Mexico state-licensed cannabis businesses is ratcheting up. The CBP has now arrested a handful of workers at a border checkpoint after weeks of seizing state-legal marijuana products from licensed operators attempting to pass through border checkpoints located within the state.
Thanks to an audio recording obtained by The Paper., details have emerged surrounding the arrest.
Ethan Ramsey, an employee with Las Cruces cannabis producer Head Space Alchemy, was stopped Thursday morning at the interior border checkpoint on Interstate 25, north of Las Cruces, on his way to Santa Fe to drop off samples for testing. Rob Duran, a managing partner of Head Space Alchemy, followed in another vehicle.
In the audio recording, a Border Patrol agent can be heard telling Duran, “We’ve been instructed to seize all cannabis—all illegal products. It’s still federally illegal.”
When asked how the operators and CBP can work together towards a solution to the issue, the agent responds that Duran can speak to a supervisor or contact the regional office.
“I can’t tell you anything that they [haven’t] already told you,” says the officer. “Or I can’t go above what they’re telling you … Everything’s going to get seized.”
During a back-and-forth between the officer and Duran, the officer refuses to state that he recognizes that cannabis is legal in New Mexico, repeatedly stating that it is illegal at the federal level.
When Duran asks about the current stop, the officer tells him that Ramsey was arrested but refuses to expand on that. As Duran struggles to get details about what will happen to the worker, the agent tells him that he is busy trying to work and directs him to speak to the supervisor. He then notes that there is no supervisor at the checkpoint.
As Duran continues to question the officer, the officer refuses to give any more details.
“He’s under arrest,” the agent says. “That’s what happens when someone gets placed under arrest. You’re trying to get a definitive answer out of me. I don’t know where we’re at. We’ve just started this process. We’ve just started this case, so I can’t give you a definitive answer.”
The worker was eventually released nearly three hours later.
Duran tells The Paper. that he estimates Head Space has lost nearly $20,000 in products between the encounter on Thursday and a previous seizure by CBP.
“In both cases, [employees] have had their pictures taken and been fingerprinted, and have also been told that their names are going to now be in a federal database as being caught at a federal inspection checkpoint with cannabis,” Duran says.
But, he says, none of his employees who have been detained were issued any citation or notice to appear in court.
“We weren’t given any paperwork,” he says. “We were not even given anything that reflects that the seizure even occurred. So there’s not even a way for us to even prove that this product was taken by the federal government.”
Duran says he still doesn’t have a back up plan for how to get the company’s products tested or even delivered to the dozens of dispensaries that carry their products, especially since there’s effectively no way to avoid the federal checkpoints surrounding Las Cruces.
“I wish I did have a plan, but right now we just don’t know what the next steps are,” he says.
As The Paper. has previously reported, cannabis operators in other border states that have legalized recreational cannabis Like California and Arizona do not appear to be facing the same kind of enforcement at interior checkpoints. In 2022, following the legalization of marijuana in the state, the CBP did clarify that it would continue seizing weed at the checkpoints, however, operators, including Duran, report having been able to pass through without incident until recently.
“Just within the last, I would say 60 days, that’s when things started to change course,” Duran says.
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