Northern Border Slowdowns Probable If Canada Legalizes Marijuana on July 1, CBP's Owen Says
ATLANTA -- Northern border trade with Canada could see some disruptions if Canada moves forward with its plans to legalize marijuana on July 1, said Todd Owen, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Field Operations, at the East Coast Trade Symposium on Dec. 6. CBP will stop trucks at the border if there has been an indication of drug use or the presence of drugs in the vehicle, he said. “We are going to be stopping more trucks and more people at the border,” he said. Those who know the Northern border know already that “we don’t have a lot of room to do a lot of secondary inspections,” Owen said. “You need to be paying attention to this, because we are not going to be surging resources to the Northern border to allocate for this,” he said.
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Companies and drivers could even lose their status in trusted trader programs as a result of the change, Owen said. Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) members need to be familiar with the trucking companies they use, and what their polices are on marijuana. Truck drivers could lose their status in the Free and Secure Trade (FAST) program, he said. “If you use a small trucking company with three or four FAST drivers, and those FAST drivers are found inadmissible because of drug use, what is that going to do to your supply chain?” Owen said he is “concerned with what happens on July 1 if the Canadian government does move forward with this.” There will be an impact at the border, “and I think the trade community does need to be paying attention,” he said.