Forget scoring some weed in Michigan

With Michigan soon to legalize recreational cannabis, Southwestern Ontario residents planning to travel south of the border to buy marijuana better get schooled on the rules, or risk facing life-lasting consequences, warns an American immigration lawyer. Michigan will become the 10th state to legalize recreational pot next month — the first in the Midwest — but that doesn’t mean Canadians can pop over to Port Huron or Detroit to score weed to bring back home, said lawyer Len Saunders, who practises law in Blaine, Wash. “You cannot bring cannabis from the U.S. into Canada. Period,” Saunders said Wednesday. Canadian customs officials will seize marijuana from citizens trying to take it across the border — regardless of what state they visited — and could slap the rule-breaking travellers with other penalties, including revoking their Nexus pass, Saunders said. “Anything drug-related is a lifetime bar for Nexus,” he said of the Canada-U. S. expedited border control program. “That’s where a lot of Canadians are going to run into problems.” The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed that citizens travelling to the U.S. can’t bring cannabis back into the country, regardless of what state they’re coming from.

“It is still illegal to import or export cannabis, or any cannabis products, into and out of Canada without a valid permit, issued by Health Canada,” spokesperson Barre Campbell wrote in an email, adding offenders could face criminal charges. But Campbell didn’t say whether losing a Nexus pass could also be a consequence, or if Canadian border officials would share information about pot seizures with their U.S. counterparts — another concern Saunders raised. Saunders also cautioned that Canadians travelling to the U.S. who say they’re planning to visit a marijuana dispensary could be turned away. Even if a state has legalized pot, border agents are obligated to enforce federal law, under which cannabis is still a controlled substance. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) says its agents make decisions to admit travellers on a case-by-case basis. “In all inspections, determinations about admissibility and whether any regulatory or criminal enforcement is appropriate are made by a CBP officer based on the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time,” spokesperson Stephanie Malin said in an email. “Aliens must overcome all grounds of inadmissibility, including admissions of past violations of controlled substance law. Possession and/or admission to the use of marijuana by an alien may result in the refusal of admission.” Legal cannabis won’t be available in Michigan until early 2020, as the state comes up with regulations and grants retail licences.