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This story was republished with permission from Crain’s Detroit and written by Dustin Walsh.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is reportedly cracking down on the state-legal marijuana industry, targeting product moving through traffic checkpoints in New Mexico.
It’s unclear if the seizures reported in recent months stem from a federal directive or if the New Mexico CBP is operating independently under its authority to seize the federally illegal products.
But the reports coming from the southwest could trigger concern here in Michigan, which shares 721 miles of border with Ontario, Canada. In fact, a large chunk of the state falls within CBP’s authority that’s defined as within 100 miles of an international border.
In New Mexico, CBP seized 22 pounds of legal marijuana product from Top Crop Cannabis Co., who operates under a marijuana license in the state, on Feb. 14, according to reporting from TV news organization KTSM.
The product had a market value of $139,000 and the company’s general manager was detained by CBP for four hours, the news channel reported. Other seizures have been reported in the state.
CBP operates six permanent interior checkpoints in New Mexico, in stark contrast to Michigan.
CBP is actually very unlikely to begin seizing marijuana in the interior of Michigan, Youssef Fawaz, a CBP spokesperson for the Michigan region, told Crain’s.
The reason is relatively simple: there are no interior checkpoints outside the U.S.-Canada border in the state.
That should come as a relief to Michigan’s booming marijuana industry, which sold nearly $3.1 billion worth of product in 2023.
Wayne County, which borders Canada, dominates the adult-recreational marijuana market in Michigan accounting for nearly 11% of the state’s total $259 million in adult-recreational sales in February this year.
A interior checkpoint that leads to seizures in the county could seriously disrupt the entire industry in the state. In fact, adult-use sales in the 18 counties from the Thumb to the north, Lansing to the west, Ohio to the south and the Canadian border to the east account for more than 53% of the total marijuana sales. Every one of those counties fall within CBP authority.
In New Mexico, and other states bordering a foreign country, CBP has the authority to search for and seize federally illegal products at these checkpoints as part of its mission. The agency is permitted to question and search vehicle occupants in search of illegal immigrants, terrorists and drug smugglers at will.
The marijuana seized in New Mexico was done so at these roadside checkpoints.
CBP operates at least 70 checkpoints across the U.S., but only a handful on the U.S.-Canada border in states such as Maine and New York.
Immigration events just happen far more regularly at the border with Mexico, not Canada — hence the lack of checkpoints in Northern states. Last year, there were 189,042 encounters with CBP from immigrants with no legal status in the U.S. at the Canadian border. Conversely, there were more than 2 million recorded encounters with CBP at the border with Mexico, according to data from the CBP.
Fawaz said CBP is not seeking to create new checkpoints in Michigan, but said the agency continues to seize marijuana, even legally acquired, at the Canadian border. It remains illegal to cross the border into the U.S. from Canada with marijuana, and it’s illegal to bring marijuana from the U.S. into Canada unless the individual has a prescription authorized by Canadian health authorities.
At issue in New Mexico is not just that marijuana remains a Schedule 1 narcotic federally, but also that it’s likely difficult for CBP to determine whether marijuana in the state is under a regulated market. Simply put, the federal agents aren’t trained in New Mexico state regulations and likely seize the product with a viewpoint that it’s less risky to seize state-legal product than to allow potentially smuggled drugs to pass through.
But the seizures seem at odds with the federal government’s direction on state-legal marijuana. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a memo asking the Drug Enforcement Agency to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule 1 narcotic to a Schedule 3, which would make the drug on par with anabolic steroids and Tylenol with codeine.
That decision is expected to happen in the coming months and could make these CBP seizures far less common.
