Cannabis seizures at Border Patrol checkpoints hit businesses

LAS CRUCES — Legal sales of cannabis to adults had been in effect nearly two years when an employee of Chadcor Holdings stopped at the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 25 north of Las Cruces. It was Feb. 14, 2024: Valentine’s Day.

In the vehicle was a supply of cannabis, legally grown by a regulated business operating under New Mexico’s Cannabis Regulation Act, on its way to a licensed manufacturing facility. A Border Patrol drug-sniffing dog alerted to the vehicle, which was then searched and its cargo seized by the federal agents, who said the crop would be destroyed but allegedly never provided documentation of what they took.

A pending federal lawsuit states that this was the beginning of enforcement actions threatening to isolate cannabis enterprises in the southern part of the state and even force them out of business.

While cannabis is legal for adult use in New Mexico, at Border Patrol checkpoints federal prohibition of the plant remains in force. Agents have reportedly been cracking down on cannabis businesses moving their products north on highways near Las Cruces and Alamogordo. Business owners say agents have taken products and cash, impounded vehicles and detained employees who are photographed, fingerprinted and entered into a federal database of people detained for drug trafficking.

“Marijuana is still a prohibited drug under Schedule I of The United States Controlled Substances Act,” the Border Patrol said in a public statement. “Therefore, U.S. Border Patrol agents will continue to take appropriate enforcement action against those who are encountered in possession of marijuana anywhere in the United States.”

Business owners say the lack of documentation undermines New Mexico’s regulatory framework and creates an opportunity for backdoor cannabis sales.

Chadcor, doing business as Dark Matter, Top Crop Cannabis and Iron Lung NM, is one of eight businesses suing the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, seeking to recover cannabis and cash exceeding $1 million and a court order halting enforcement actions.

“We wanted to be on the right side of history,” Nathan Silva, co-founder of manufacturer and distributor Mylars, told the Journal. “We wanted to enact the change as well and get the ball started, and the only way to do that was to start these conversations about the policy.”

Silva was stopped on March 25 on a state road leading from Las Cruces to Hatch. It was the second time his business had been subject to a seizure. Silva said he was detained for six hours after an agent inquired about his trip and what Silva did for a living. Products with a retail value totaling more than $18,000 were removed from their commercial packaging and placed in evidence bags.

“I was treated as if I was committing some sort of international crime,” Silva said.

The Border Patrol operates six permanent checkpoints in southern New Mexico, routinely stopping vehicles moving in one direction on interstate highways and state roads.

After New Mexico legalized medical cannabis in 2007, the checkpoints presented a problem for patients, particularly in communities without local dispensaries. A cannabis patient in Deming who bought his medicine in Las Cruces sued the federal government in 2015 for the right to carry his medicine through the checkpoints, but the case was dismissed by a judge.

“Coming south, you do not get inspected,” Chadcor founder and owner Matthew Chadwick told the Journal. “It’s only really impacting southern operators that are trying to move their product north, which is where the vast majority of the state’s dispensaries lie.”

His enterprises have “easily” lost more than $100,000 because of the seizures, Chadwick said, remarking that losses of that scale could be crippling for small enterprises.

Chadcor was hit by another forfeiture on Thursday, Chadwick said. This time, agents provided a receipt for what had been taken — a combination of flower and products worth about $15,000 — but the encounter also raised his concerns about probable cause.

This time, he said, agents appeared to quickly identify a different vehicle and driver with his business, inspected the vehicle even though the dog did not raise an alert and commented about other vehicles and drivers associated with Chadwick’s organization.

“They definitely have been tracking and identifying the vehicles we’ve been using and the personnel who is taking the product through,” Chadwick said.

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the businesses have not presented legal grounds for the case to move forward.