Democrat New Mexico Governor Laments Fed’s Seizure of Marijuana in Leaked Audio

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) complained to a high-ranking official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about the seizure of state-legalized marijuana and the lack of Border Patrol agents in her state. The revelation surfaced from a secretly recorded phone conversation that took place on an airplane flight.

The Democrat chief executive of the State of New Mexico complained about the impact of marijuana seizures on legalized growers in the state.

The governor on New Mexico stated that they look the other way when drugs come through their border and from the sounds of it – she is getting pressure about LOADS that are coming in that are detrimental. These politicians are part of the cartels! #HatemenowLovemelater pic.twitter.com/SrAk9I8hU7

— Chaos Coordinator (@idontexistTore) April 26, 2024

“They’re saying (Border Patrol) that they’re worried about fentanyl so they’re taking all of our cannabis,” the governor says in the audio recording leaked by X user “Chaos Coordinator,” @idontexisttore, “and they’re detaining people.”

The governor also complained about the lack of Border Patrol agents in the “Boot-Heel” region of the state’s border with Mexico. “Put them at the border in Sunland Park where I don’t have a single Border Patrol agent — not one — and so, I’m cranky with the secretary (DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas)” Grisham stated.

During the Trump administration, Republican New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez sent National Guard soldiers to assist and border security operations, Breitbart Texas reported in April 2018. Shortly after Governor Grisham’s inauguration in January 2019, she ordered the withdrawal of most of the deployed New Mexico National Guard members.

“I reject the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the southern border,” Grisham said at the time.

The governor threatened the unnamed DHS official regarding the seizure of cannabis that is legal in her state. She claimed the Border Patrol is taking a hard stance and it has to be adjusted “or I have to send you a letter saying you’re persucting a state, you are not using your discretion, you are not working with me on immigration, and I don’t want to send that letter but I’m boxed in — hard.”

Grisham said the secretary (Mayorkas) previously responded to her about the seizure of marijuana and its impact on state-legal cannabis producers. She said he told her “Who cares, they make a lot of money.”

“I was really offended by that — shame on him,” she told the DHS official in the leaked audio.  She went on to talk about the impact of the seizures on what she called “baby producers.”
“If they (state-legal cannabis producers) lose a load, their business goes belly up,” Grisham said in the leaked audio.

She begged the official to do something about the problem after reporters called her “feckless.”

“I got a nasty (note from the press saying), ‘the governor is feckless’ and she is going to let Biden walk all over her,” Grisham explained. “I can’t have that.”

Grisham’s spokesperson, Jodi McGinnis Porter, responded to the leaked audio, explaining, “This unauthorized and edited recording of the governor’s private phone call reflects what she has already said publicly — that she is frustrated by federal seizures of licensed cannabis products in New Mexico, particularly those from small producers,” according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.  “She has expressed the same concerns in phone calls with Secretary Mayorkas.”

New Mexico Chamber of Commerce executive director Ben Lewiner told the local newspaper that on of the larger cannabis producers lost a load valued at $130,ooo. “If it were a smaller, baby producer — a microproducer — that could be the end of their business … and of course, there’s no insurance products in this industry that covers that kind of loss,” he added.

He went on to brag that New Mexico produces “some of the very best cannabis products” are coming from the southern part of the state and presumably are being interdicted at Border Patrol interior checkpoints.

In an email from Department of Homeland Security Spokesperson Erin Heeter, the agency asserted:

Although medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in some U.S. states and Canada, the sale, possession, production and distribution of marijuana or the facilitation of the aforementioned remain illegal under U.S. federal law, given the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance.

Consequently, individuals violating the Controlled Substances Act encountered while crossing the border, arriving at a U.S. port of entry, or at a Border Patrol checkpoint may be deemed inadmissible and/or subject to seizure, fines, and/or arrest.

Republicans in the New Mexico Legislature urged the governor to include border security measures in her legislative agenda for a special session slated for July. The governor continues to assert that border security if the responsibility of the federal government, the Santa Fe New Mexican stated.