Use Your Credit Card to Buy Weed in Canada? Get Banned For Life From the USA

Use Your Credit Card To Buy Weed In Canada? Get Banned For Life From The USA

The United States has long been thought of as the land of the free. But much has changed ever since POTUS Trump came into the picture, and since Canada decided that they wanted to legalize recreational cannabis.

A few months ago, US Customs and Border Patrol announced that any Canadian who uses pot can be banned from the border – FOR LIFE. Even investors who don’t touch the plant can also suffer these consequences. It all boils down to the fact that cannabis is still a federally illegal substance in the USA, so if you toke up in your home land and it’s perfectly legal there, it’s not going to save you from the repercussions.

To add insult to injury, US authorities can rightfully access Canadians’ credit card information, reports Global News. All transactions that go on in Canadians’ credit card data can be shared with the US government without the need for a warrant. The same applies to other non-Americans. This means that if the US government wants to start finding out exactly which Canadians are buying and smoking pot once October 17 rolls around the corner, they can absolutely do it.

This also means that Canadians may be put in a compromising situation at the border when, if asked by a US border guard if they smoke pot, they can be banned for life – but the other choice is to also deny it. In doing so, if found guilty, this could also mean getting banned for life.

In other words, Canadians are caught between a rock and a hard place.

It’s not an enviable position to be in, especially if you frequent the US.

But there surely has to be a way around it.

Canadians who live in provinces and territories may need to first find a way of obtaining their pot without using their credit card. Many provinces will open up government-run websites to sell them, so using your credit card may be inevitable. Global News reports that in Nova Scotia, cannabis will be regulated by the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission (NSLC), so when you buy cannabis online, it will be concealed under the NSLC’s name.

In a Global News article from last April on the topic, former assistant federal privacy commissioner Heather Black said: “Any information that goes outside of Canada is up for grabs by local law enforcement.”

“It’s part of the globalization of data. It goes all over the place,” Black says. “American authorities are pretty greedy for scooping up information, and they clearly don’t confine themselves to the borders of the United States.”

What’s unfair is that Canadians don’t have the same right over Americans’ credit card information the same way that the US government does.

“In Canada, we would be protected by the Charter. In the US we’re not protected by the Fourth Amendment, as non-US persons, so there’s no constitutional protection for our data,” says Lisa Austin, University of Toronto law professor.

Privacy Agreements

All five big banks have a privacy agreement stating that the financial data of customers can be stored beyond Canadian borders, allowing their information to be subject to the laws of whichever country it’s stored in. For one, the agreement of BMO states that companies storing data “may be located outside of Canada (such as in the United States) and may be required to disclose information to courts, government authorities, regulators or law enforcement in accordance with applicable law in that country.”

The 2005 PATRIOT Act states that Canadians’ credit card data which is held in the US may be accessed by American authorities. The act is an anti-terrorism law that was passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It states that “… certain US intelligence and police surveillance and information collection tolls have been expanded, and procedural hurdles for US law enforcement agencies have been minimized. Under section 2015 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can access records held in the United States.”

For Canadians, the best resort as of now would be to use debit card whenever purchasing pot. Better yet, cash is still king.