CANNABIS INVESTOR GIVEN U.S. ENTRY BAN

En route to pot conference in Las Vegas

A Canadian investor travelling to Las Vegas to attend a prominent cannabis conference and tour a new cannabis facility has been issued a lifetime entry ban to the United States, according to an immigration lawyer he consulted.

“He was travelling straight from Vancouver to Vegas. When they found out he was going down to tour the marijuana facility and that he was an investor in marijuana, they gave him a lifetime ban,” said Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer based in the border town of Blaine, Wash., who was consulted by the individual after receiving the ban.

The investor’s ban comes as concerns increase over how Canadians affiliated with the cannabis industry will be treated when trying to cross the U.S. border as Canada’s legal cannabis industry has expanded.

The individual, who invests in a Canadian cannabis business that has an operation in Nevada, received the ban on the morning of Nov. 14, as he was trying to travel to Las Vegas to attend the Marijuana Business Conference & Expo, which attracted close to 25,000 investors, entrepreneurs, lenders, lobbyists and executives of major U.S. and Canadian licensed cannabis producers.

According to Saunders, who has a transcript of the exchange, a U.S. border guard at Vancouver International Airport’s pre-clearance area asked the individual if he understood that an investment in the U.S. cannabis industry was a “violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act related to controlled substance trafficking.”

“I learned that today,” the individual replied.

The transcript was provided to Saunders by the individual, who does not want to be named as he grapples with how to navigate the complications that come with having a lifetime entry ban to the U.S.