The lawsuit asserts that damages from the stops and seizures easily exceed $1 million.
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Eight licensed cannabis companies in New Mexico have had enough after months of what they call harassment from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). These businesses filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden Administration on October 22, alleging their Fifth Amendment rights have been repeatedly violated, with CBP seizing their state-legal cannabis products and detaining their employees a dozen times since February.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, claims Border Patrol agents have seized hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of legally produced and distributed cannabis at checkpoints. Despite the federal government's generally "hands-off" approach to state-legal cannabis since the Obama administration, CBP has cited the industry’s federal illegality as the reason for these actions. According to the plaintiffs, this has caused over $1 million in damages, and they argue that New Mexico is the only border state where such seizures are occurring, even though Arizona and California also have recreational cannabis programs.
In early 2024, CBP allegedly adopted a new policy of “summarily seizing” cannabis products and property related to these businesses without due process, including cash and even vehicles, according to the lawsuit. “CBP has also engaged in a practice of detaining individuals employed by Plaintiffs, taking their fingerprints and mugshots, and entering them onto federal smuggling, racketeering, and international drug trafficking lists, only to release them without charges when the local federal authorities inevitably refuse to prosecute based on the well-known ‘hands off’ policy,” the suit claims.
The lawsuit details 12 separate stops and seizures in southern New Mexico, where employees of these companies were detained, fingerprinted, and treated as criminals before being released. One female employee from Royal Cannabis was allegedly held in a cell “furnished only with a cot covered in black mold resulting in toxic and hazardous air quality inside” and was forced to use a restroom “in full view of the CBP.” She was also reportedly deprived of clean drinking water during her hours-long detention.
“CBP’s actions are having a rippling effect and, if left unchecked, have the potential to undermine New Mexico’s entire regulatory scheme,” the suit contends. It also highlights that New Mexico appears to be the only border state where CBP has been actively seizing and ultimately destroying state-legal cannabis products.
According to the suit, CBP’s approach became “increasingly aggressive” in 2024, with personal vehicles of employees also being seized, such as a Ford and an Audi impounded after two different seizures in August.
Alongside Royal Cannabis, the other plaintiffs include Mesilla Valley Extracts, Super Farm, Impact Farms, Chadcor Holdings NM, Mylars LLC, Rollin Love, and Desert Peak Farms. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, under which CBP operates, is also named as a defendant in the case.
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