She Immigrated Legally. She Married a U.S. Citizen. But She Was Denied Citizenship for Working in Legal Cannabis.
She Immigrated Legally. She Married a U.S. Citizen. But She Was Denied Citizenship for Working in Legal Cannabis.
Federal Law has not changed in the US. Cannabis is illegal in all 50 States. The current system of not enforcing the laws did a lot to relieve social pressure on Congress or the DEA without the need for them to actually effect any change. Honestly, we need to stop talking about cannabis as if it were legal and remind people that the situation is actually a mess, so that there is some incentive to get pressure back on the Federal Government to fix this mess. As long as cannabis is in legal limbo, the Federal Bureaucracy is going to keep grinding people up in its gears when they slip into one of the cracks.
Yeah, I had almost forgotten how much of a mess it is, until I asked my newly adult son about it …..
All he ever knew is that pot is legal where we live. He knew to be wary of crossing state lines but had no idea about federal laws, or banking restrictions
The best time to de-schedule cannabis was 10 years ago
The second-best time to do it is now
Unfortunately, the War on Drugs is just Jim Crow 2.0, enacted shortly after the end of Jim Crow 1.0 (fun fact, Jim Crow laws remained in force until 1965, the War on Drugs started in 1971). In the end it was just a massive expansion of police discretionary authority, and in the beginning it was explicitly intended to give police the ability to crack down on political enemies of the Nixon administration- that is, black people and the anti-war left.
The GOP will never let cannabis be de-scheduled; they understand that without it more minorities won't be convicted felons and will be able to vote against them (and never forget that convicts are slave labor and there's a lot of money in that)
What a shitty future we inherited.
this sucks and I feel for her. But it also falls into one of those "duh" type things. How someone working in the field not know that it is federally illegal?
One thing, victim blaming, second thing, probably because the pot industry keeps literally telling everyone it's legal when it's actually just unenforceable by federal agencies. As in a federal agent can't hunt you down and arrest you just for the weed, but they can deny banking services, deny licenses, citizenship, etc.
Do you see dispensaries saying that in their ads? I don't.
Shit, I get ads on fucking YouTube trying to sell me "totally legal" mail weed that will absolutely get me arrested by my state, even if the Post Service doesn't narc.
Fun Fact:
Many of the dispensaries in California operate without licenses, which they certainly don't tell their employees, and the state doesn't offer a resource to check even if you know this little fact, so California absolutely can and will arrest you for working in a "legal" weed shop.
And, finally, just get fucking real?
They're not "working in the industry" unless they're a grower or an owner. They're a retail employee selling plants.
Now, sure, she, specifically, seems to be in a small business with her husband but even that doesn't mean she should know the minutiae of federal immigration law in regards to cannabis.
This isn’t like “you shouldn’t have dressed like that” but rather “you shouldn’t have climbed into that gorilla enclosure”.
If I had my way, they'd be an American as soon as they expressed interest. I am a hardline radical for free movement of people and open borders. This specific instance is a no-brainer, though. This was a bad idea.
Touched a nerve, asking for someone to not be stupid or show personal responsibility, it seems...
And not everything is "victim blaming". The federal government has absolutely created a shit show around pot regulations the past 10 years. That doesn't mean she wasn't an idiot.
Contrary to what the echo chamber you've been living in is telling you. It is still and always has been possible for two things to be true. There is nothing that excludes both her being an idiot and the government being incompetent from both being true.
And FYI those "YouTube weed sites" are totally legal at federal level. They don't actually sell weed they sell shit that has less then .03% of THC which is legal. So they are just scams.
I mean, what did she expect? Marijuana is still schedule 1 under the US Controlled Substances Act, and it's a federal crime, regardless of whether or not a state legalized it. This is a known problem for anyone in the marijuana business; they often have serious problems with banking because they're "drug traffickers" under federal law. Anyone that's tried to buy a gun in the last few years has seen that on form 4473, 21.e: "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana [emphasis added] or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance? Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medical or recreational purposes in the state where you reside."
This is a known issue. Anyone that works in a state-legal marijuana business would have to be intentionally ignorant to not know that it's still a federal crime, and that it's still prosecuted at a federal level. So why would someone ever think that they're going to be able to be obtain citizenship when they work in a business that makes them a federal felon?
Obviously the Controlled Substances Act needs to be repealed or amended, but it until it is, maybe don't do shit like this if you aren't a citizen and want to be?
It's one of those when you think about it after the fact you guess that can make sense. But when you get the job, give them your SSN, and pay federal income tax on your wage, yeah you might not think boy this is a felony and will prevent me from getting citizenship.
Together, she and her husband managed to open [emphasis added] a small storefront in Ephrata [...]
This wasn't a case of her 'getting a job'; she and her husband literally started the business. There's no fucking way you can reasonably start and run a marijuana business and not know that it's still federally illegal. There's no reasonable way to plead ignorance on this.
Nor do you expect that operating a lawful business might affect immigration process
If you're not thinking about how your job will affect your citizenship application...I don't know what to say.
Anyone that’s tried to buy a gun in the last few years has seen that on form 4473, 21.e: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana [emphasis added] or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance? Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medical or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.”
This was ruled unconstitutional earlier this year last year ( https://www.reuters.com/legal/drug-user-cannot-be-barred-owning-guns-us-court-rules-2023-08-10/ )
I believe that case is being appealed. But it's still not clear that this will be a binding precedent, given that one of the charges against Hunter Biden is that he bought a gun (which he then disposed of very badly) while he was a drug addict. (And if the prosecutor doesn't drop those charges, it will put Hunter's legal team in the unenviable position of legally challenging his father's political policy.)
But, even so, it's still on form 4473, so seeing that should at least make anyone involved in marijuana business at any level pause for a second.
Again: I'm not saying that I think that it's right that marijuana is schedule 1. I absolutely support decriminalization of marijuana. But that's still current federal law, and you aren't going to get citizenship if you're knowingly committing federal felonies.
Yeah, I mean, that kind of thing is going to happen when cannabis is Schedule I.
“We didn’t think about the consequences of getting involved, or how the federal law was going to affect us,” Reimers said.
When you want US citizenship, it's a federal level thing. You should maybe think about how federal law is going to affect you. I'm not saying that the laws around cannabis at the federal level are right, but they are the laws that exist.
Not sure where you're getting that from.
The "legal" marijuana industry only benefits people in the investment class. It's traded on the stock market, it's sold in so many states over the counter and yet people sit in jail for it. Biden's pardons aren't even close to halfway there but the entire media had a field day with it like we were in some golden era of legalization. People's rights are still subjugated on behalf of the war on drugs, specifically the war on smelling cannabis burning. None of the workers ever benefit from the runaway profits with certain companies earning six figures a week in revenue for a single state.
Things could be better, for sure, but it is pretty awesome for the average person in a legal state (or country) to be able to buy and grow weed legally. Give it time for the "war on drugs" generation to die out and things will be even better.
I'd say the problem is how some states have manipulated the market to only benefit big players.
Illinois, for example, has given out the fewest licenses to grow and made it illegal to grow for personal use.
that is what the last generation said
have a story passed down through two generations of a woman in the 20s putting a towel under the door so the smell did not get into the hallway
Where are the "states' rights" Republicans hiding?
Even if weed was federally full up legal, it's going to take time to readjust the rules and regulations, and directives to make it all fine. The Devil is always in the details and seldom can be sorted at the snap of a finger.
420 up votes. We did it guys
legal at the State level and legal at the Federal level are two wildly separate things - the State cannot grant you citizenship, the Federal Government does that.
it's her own damn fault
i remember as a kid it being banged into my head how america was great because it was a giant melting pot.. bring us your poor, tired, etc. the numbers bear out that first generation immigrants work harder, cause less crime than 'natural' citizens.
and its true, immigrants made this country. it is a country of immigrants.. cuz, ya know, mass native population genocide and all.
but here we are.. these conservative fuckwads have somehow convinced everyone the opposite is true.
if youre anti-immigration, youre just racist. thats it.
It changed around 2002. It's interesting to me because that was when my "free thinking" parents changed their views.
No it didn't. The US barred Asians from entering for multiple decades. This country has been anti immigrant(anti anyone not white moving here) since it's inception
Right after Sept 11th, 2001, huh
Yeah that makes sense
9/11 was a system shock to a lot of folks.
It's wild how different it is now. Even the people who raised me with those same values (in this case, my parents) are now Trump supporters. Like what the fuck happened to you? YOU MADE MY LIKE THIS!
It's a massive bummer.
Honestly, this is a reason that I am glad, in a fucked up kind of way, that my father died when I was young. He was intelligent but I've seen a lot of intelligent people go off the rails in the last decade as well as from a very religious family. I don't know that I'd have coped as well as folks like yourself.
I hope that your parents come to their senses and own up to their mistakes.
What first world country isn't the country of immigrants? Look at any successful country in Europe. UK and Ireland especially, would sink to the bottom if not for the cheap labour it got in the 2000s.
From where I'm sitting, the USA was always a massive piece of shit on racial and gender prejudice issues. I guess some of us must have been more fortunate with the Independent School District Lottery.
Ever see Gangs of New York?
Yeah...
I’m also 41 and that’s exactly what we were taught. Bring us the tired poor huddled masses.
I'm around your same age and have always been told immigrants generally good.
That's not a generational view you have there. I'm willing to bet that immigrant is a synonym for 'not white' by whoever in your past has said this.
I'm 37 and was generally raised with the melting pot mentality, but I grew up in Washington state. Out of curiosity, not judgment, did you grow up in a Red state?
I am very close to your age and I was taught that. That’s literally the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. Sounds like someone tried to brainwash you.
ill tell ya, +50 and originally from the north. are you from a
racistconservative area?racist: Someone who believes that their race makes them better, more intelligent, more moral, etc. than people of other races and who does or says unfair or harmful things as a result:
And what exactly does that have to do with anything? It's comments like this that make it look like YOU might be part of the problem.
What killers?
Fuck off RIDF