Feds Seizing Legal Cannabis Products In New Mexico

Federal Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have in recent weeks seized more than $300,000 worth of cannabis products from state-licensed cannabis operators in New Mexico, KRQE reports. The seizures have been carried out during routine CBP checkpoints located in the state’s southern region near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Normally they don’t have dogs,” said Top Crop Cannabis Co.’s Operations Manager Nick Spoor in the report. “Usually it’s just a, ‘Are you a U.S. citizen, yes’ and then they wave you through.”

But on February 14, while transferring 22 pounds of legal cannabis inventory from Top Crop’s Las Cruces-based cultivation facility to one of its Albuquerque stores, Spoor was stopped by border agents who detained him for more than three hours and ultimately seized all of the product, valued at approximately $139,000. The border agents said they would provide instructions for recovering the product via mail but the instructions never arrived, the report said.

“We’ve been going through that checkpoint for over a year, no questions asked, so obviously we’re doing everything compliantly. It was manifested product. So, I was shocked, a little blown away and taken back.” — Matt Chadwick, CEO of Top Crop Cannabis Co., via KRQE

In total, the state’s cannabis regulators say that federal border agents have seized more than $300,000 worth of state-legal cannabis.

New Mexico launched its adult-use cannabis industry in 2022 but CBP is a federal law enforcement agency, and cannabis remains federally prohibited as a Schedule I substance.