Lawmakers from states where marijuana is legal express incredulity that American researchers have to import foreign cannabis. canada Members of Congress, businesses push for homegrown weed

Washington just got some major peer pressure to embrace the bong.

Its vast northern neighbor Canada legalizes the retail sale of marijuana nationwide Wednesday. The Canadian cannabis sector is already estimated to be worth $31 billion and upstart marijuana companies have soared on the New York Stock Exchange.


But America’s patchwork of state laws — and federal ban on marijuana — put American pot companies at a high disadvantage.

It's unclear whether the push to liberalize U.S. marijuana laws will get very far: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has declared war on marijuana, though his efforts have been dampened by a not-so-hostile White House. Yet Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said last week that the White House plans to address cannabis reform following the midterms.

Rohrabacher's efforts are bolstered by a chorus of congressional and business voices calling on the Trump administration to respond with an “America First” policy on pot.

A publicly traded U.S. cannabis company bought a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday with a message to President Donald Trump: Canada will take over the U.S. marijuana market if we don't legalize soon.

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Lawmakers from states where marijuana is legal express incredulity that American researchers have to import foreign cannabis.

One such congressman is from the so-called Emerald Triangle, in northern California.

“My district is hugely impacted,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told POLITICO. “My primary concern is the complete dysfunction that our incoherent cannabis policy leads to. … You have California universities trying to do research — and they have to buy the product from Canada.”

Canada is moving ahead with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's campaign promise on legalization. A new poll shows 70 percent of Canadians either support or can accept the Trudeau government’s law, which allows each province to sell marijuana in private stores or government-run outlets.

A bipartisan group of American lawmakers fumed last month when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency gave the green light to importing Canadian marijuana for research purposes. The 15 lawmakers, many of them representing states that have legalized recreational cannabis, protested to the DEA and Sessions that dozens of American companies already requested permission to produce marijuana for study.

They wrote that allowing the University of California, San Diego, one of the applicants, to import marijuana capsules from Canada-based Tilray, Inc., was “adding insult to injury.”

Noting that Trump had issued a "Buy American" executive order, the lawmakers urged the administration to ensure that the domestic need for cannabis research be met by American institutions.

The concerns are not just limited to medicinal marijuana.

Recreational use is gaining a foothold in U.S. states. Voters in North Dakota and Michigan will vote on ballot initiatives on legalization on Election Day.

Already, nine states and the District of Columbia, have legalized pot, and 31 others allow medical marijuana.

“I think it frankly cries out for a federal solution,” Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), now challenging Democrat Heidi Heitkamp for her Senate seat, told POLITICO.

“And this is tough stuff — this is hard stuff to talk about — because I’m a law-and-order congressman, but it’s impossible to ignore what’s going on. … If the federal government itself doesn’t do something to sort of at least provide the banking system that allows for greater oversight and regulation, I think we’re just setting ourselves up for a bit of a rogue industry rather than a highly regulated one.”

California Rep. Ro Khanna: “Comprehensive marijuana reform must be a top priority for Democrats when we take back the House in November.” | Ben Margot/AP Photo

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), whose district includes Silicon Valley, said Canada’s move should spur Democrats to push decriminalization legislation if they take the House of Representatives next month.

In a statement, he said the proposed Marijuana Justice Act, which would also expunge criminal records for pot use, would help keep the U.S. from losing the market to Canada, create thousands of jobs and make amends for past injustices.

“Comprehensive marijuana reform must be a top priority for Democrats when we take back the House in November,” he said.

Canada’s pot rollout has its own challenges.

As Ottawa has left it to the provinces to regulate marijuana sales, provinces and cities are now grappling with a host of policy questions such as where pot can be sold, where it can be smoked and who can smoke it.

In some places, off-duty police officers can smoke pot. In others, they can’t. Some Canadian polling shows public concern about implementation.

But some of the biggest policy challenges involve navigating Canada’s relations with the U.S., where marijuana is strictly prohibited at the federal level.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said it will continue to enforce a federal ban on allowing drug abusers into the U.S.

This summer the agency said that marijuana users, workers and investors could be banned from entering the U.S., but has since softened the policy somewhat. CBP officials told reporters Tuesday that Canadian marijuana workers and investors would be allowed to enter the U.S. as long as they were not coming for business purposes, reiterating guidance the agency updated last week.

“Nothing changes [Wednesday]," CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner Todd Owen said.

Owen said he doesn't expect border agents to routinely interrogate travelers about their marijuana use, rather using their discretion when encountering them to pursue that line of questioning.

There are also concerns in the financial sector.

When Uruguay became the first country to begin selling retail marijuana last year, U.S. banks threatened to end relationships with Uruguayan banks that served the sector.

Those threats had an effect. Uruguay’s pot sector is now a cash-only industry.

Some Canadian banks fear a repeat and are taking a wait-and-see approach until gaining more clarity on how U.S. authorities will respond.

Others are diving into this new sector.

Huffman, the California congressman, isn’t as worried about Canada as he is about domestic American politics.

“I don’t see how Canada can literally take over [the industry],” he said, noting that legalization challenges will occur there too.

He says Trump could achieve two things at once by taking marijuana off the list of federally controlled substances: support American businesses, and one-up Sessions, a frequent target of presidential ire.

“This is the perfect way to stick it to the attorney general,’’ Huffman said.

“We could do it tomorrow.”