Pot users not allowed into USA from Canada

free radical wrote:

D.E.Bishop wrote:
Tuesday the L.A. Times had a "Boo Hoo Poor Me" article regarding a Canadian who answered yes when asked by US customs if he had ever smoked pot, he was denied entrance. Canada is about to legalize pot use nationwide and Washington has approved medical pot.

I dont get it,, if smoking weed is legal in Canada why would anyone be denied entry into US as long you dont bring it with you?

The key is the ‘about to legalize’ part, it wasn’t yet egal, therefore the person had admitted to criminal activity.

In a strange twist of irony though, Americans convicted of possession of less than 30 grams of pot are NOT denied entry into Canada. That’s under the Canadian threshold.

As for the DUI issue, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act ("IRPA") bars foreign nationals if they have been convicted of (or have committed) an offense that would be considered an indictable offense (roughly equivalent to a U.S. felony) if it occurred in Canada. So just like the story in the OP, if a Canadian border agent asked an American seeking entry “Have been convicted of DUI?” and the answer was something like “No, but boy am I lucky because I’ve driven a few times when I was really loaded!”. That would be grounds for the agent to refuse that person entry, they had admitted to criminal activity.