This story was originally published in Straight Cannabis.
Canada’s cannabis industry is quickly going corporate, but U.S. border agents are reportedly issuing travel bans to anyone involved, regardless of whether they’re wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt, a lab coat, or a suit.
Imagine it’s six months from now and you’ve developed a brilliant blend of fertilized soil that’s proven especially beneficial to the growth of cannabis plants.
It’s January 2019 and cannabis is fully legal in Canada. You’ve obtained every permit you’re required to develop, market, and sell your invention. Everything is above board.
You know that marijuana remains very much illegal in the United States. It’s a Schedule I drug, in fact, which classifies it alongside heroin and cocaine with a determination it has “no medical value” and therefore no legal application of any sort.
But you don’t consume cannabis yourself. And neither you nor any of your company’s employees actually touch a cannabis plant when conducting your daily business. You’re not a pothead. You’re an edaphologist. A scientist. You simply sell soil to companies who employ people who happen to grow marijuana.
So why would you worry you ever might have a problem at Canada’s border with the United States?
Because U.S. authorities could consider that nutritious blend of dirt that you developed close enough to the cannabis industry that they ban you from traveling to the United States for the rest of your life.
That’s the scenario described in a frightening report out today (July 10) in Star Metro Vancouver.
“In addition to those who have used marijuana, Canadians who are involved with the cannabis economy have been labeled ‘inadmissible because they are considered to be living off the profits of the