New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham says she is ‘offended’ by US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ recent comments regarding the Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) decision to seize legal marijuana and arrest employees working at state-licensed marijuana stores.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (photo credit: Eddie Moore/Associated Press).
Last week, we reported that Governor Grisham confronted Secretary Mayorkas about the CBP’s decision to begin seizing massive amounts of marijuana from state-licensed businesses in New Mexico, while sometimes also detaining or arresting employees. During their discussion, Secretary Mayorkas informed Governor Grisham that federal law remains unchanged, indicating that such seizures are likely to continue.
Now, in leaked audio posted on the social media platform X by an account named Chaos Coordinator, Governor Grisham says that when she pushed Mayorkas on why they are going after legal marijuana, he commented “Oh who cares? They make a lot of money”.
Grisham expressed her dismay, stating, “First off, it’s patients’ medicine. So I was really offended by that. Shame on him.” She then calls the comments from Mayorkas “really inappropriate”, noting that “essentially we are the only state that let’s baby producers in. If they lose a load, their business goes belly up.”
An official for the governor’s office confirmed the validity of these remarks.
Last week Jodi McGinnis Porter, Deputy Communications Director for Governor Grisham, told us via e-mail that “Gov. Lujan Grisham spoke with Secretary Mayorkas on Wednesday and expressed her concern about the federal seizure of cannabis from licensed distributors in New Mexico 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.”
Porter says Secretary Mayorkas told the governor that “federal policies with respect to legalized cannabis have not changed.”
Federal policy of course has marijuana as a Schedule I drug, making it illegal for all purposes.
Porter says the governor and her administration “are working on a strategy to protect New Mexico’s cannabis industry.”
The CBP’s seizure of legal marijuana comes at a time when the DEA is conducting a review that could lead to marijuana being rescheduled, with President Biden’s press sectary saying he wants to go even further by decriminalizing marijuana entirely.
