New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham expressed frustration with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a recent phone call with an unidentified federal official, saying she was “offended” by his response to seizures of weed from licensed marijuana companies.
At least a dozen seizures of regulated cannabis by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have been reported at immigration checkpoints in southern New Mexico in recent weeks, despite the 2021 legalization of recreational marijuana in the state. Under federal law, CBD is authorized to establish immigration checkpoints within 100 miles of the border with Mexico.
Last week, Lujan Grisham’s director of communications Michael Coleman reported that the governor recently raised the issue with Mayorkas to help protect New Mexico’s regulated cannabis industry, which has already generated more than $1 billion in sales.
“During the conversation, the governor noted that industry operators in border states where cannabis is legal appear to be at greater risk of scrutiny and arrest by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents than those in non-border states that have legalized cannabis,” Coleman wrote in an email statement about the encounter between the two officials, according to a report from KRQE television news.
“Secretary Mayorkas assured the governor that federal policies with respect to legalized cannabis have not changed,” Coleman continued. “Regardless, the governor and her administration are working on a strategy to protect New Mexico’s cannabis industry.”
Governor ‘Offended’ by Mayorkas’ Response
After the conversation with Mayorkas, Lujan Grisham told an unidentified federal official in a telephone call that she was unhappy with the secretary’s response to her concerns, according to a recording of the call made by an unidentified third party and posted to X by Tore Maras, who runs the website “Tore Says.”
In the recording, which Politico confirmed is authentic, …
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Author: A.J. Herrington / High Times
