Does the USPS, FedEx and UPS give a crap about weed shipments since Hemp sprayed with the same terpenes and looks the same as weed has been shipped legally for 9 years now? - eviltoast

Even if they did, won’t they get a lot of false positives because of a large amount of it being sprayed hemp buds that are legal as hemp? Also, I know a lot of dispensaries get their stock like vape pens and such delivered this way already. How does that all work?

  • Kroxx@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    For USPS they have a list of verified hemp vendors, they tried a couple years ago to open packages suspected of marijuana without a warrant. The outcome was it doesn’t matter if they suspect it, you still have to get a warrant. So now if a vendor is a certified hemp vendor they can’t touch it. Now UPS and FedEx are private companies so they can do pretty much whatever they want, that’s why almost all hemp shipments go through USPS. I’m paraphrasing a lot but that’s the gist of it. USPS is currently and has been the largest drug dealer in the country, even with omitting hemp because with the volume they process you could never catch them all and every other drug doesn’t have a pungent smell like weed.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Like Mitch Hedberg used to say “I love the mail guy, he’s a drug dealer and he doesn’t even know it!”

    • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Well, if you’re stupid enough to mail some weed or any other controlled substance via USPS Media Mail, they don’t need a warrant or even Postal Inspectors to open it. As long as it is clear that the item is not media of some kind, it can be opened and documented to charge the correct postage.

      Saw this before when some ding-dongs tried dumping mushroom growing kits (not exactly illegal) in the blue box at my old office. The only reason they opened them is because the fertilizer inside was causing a noticable amount of steam to come from the box (it was winter as well). All they really did was return it for proper postage because it was the wrong type.

      • activistPnk@slrpnk.net
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        10 months ago

        To be clear, the spores are perfectly legal. You can mail order spores that come in saline solution in a syringe without trouble. The businesses selling that are smart enough to not use media mail, which of course would cross a line (fraud). I wonder why someone would risk media mail. Perhaps they thought it would be trusted as such and thus have less scrutiny.

        The nuance here is you said “kit”, which suggests everything you need for growth and thus intent. Maybe you’re right on that bit. Buying everything separately would require surveillance to put all that together that you have a kit, in effect.

      • Today@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Why would you mark your weed media mail? Mine shows up as regular first class mail. Never had an issue. It’s legal in most of the US.

        • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Save money on postage. Media Mail is cheaper than First Class/Ground Advantage or Priority Mail and still offers tracking.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They can just delay your package until the warrant comes through. It doesn’t take that long.

      And “we got a hit by a dog/swab” is usually accepted probable cause for opening it up

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        They can also alert law enforcement in the shipper/receivers area to bust you when sending or collecting the package. I recall a few years ago someone sent a weed shipment and used the address of the mayor of some city in Maryland as the recipient and the police raided his house and shot his dogs.

        • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Babe, wake up, someone found a new way to sic cops on people.

          If it weren’t for the dogs it would be funny.

        • activistPnk@slrpnk.net
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          10 months ago

          Interesting lesson in this story:

          Pkg with contraband was intercepted, documented, all needed warrants secured. Pkg is delivered while the house is staked out by LEOs. Sometime after delivery (a day later, iirc) they bust in, find the pkg, and arrest. The pkg was sitting just inside by the door, unopened. Defense argued “my client knows nothing about this unexpected package. Who’s to say the sender wasn’t framing the recipient?” So he obviously got vindicated.

          So there’s a game of timing. Recipients need to be given the chance to open the pkg and react by calling the police. Not sure how it goes if you consume it immediately after opening and burn the box. Certainly the wrong move is to open it and let it sit around open.

          /cc @snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world

    • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A friend of mine used to ship pounds at a time through FedEx. He would ship about 20 packages every fall, half of them made it to their destination, but he and the recipients were never contacted about it. His thinking was that if someone at FedEx noticed, they would just keep it, while someone at USPS would probably get the wheels turning for prosecution.

  • Delphia@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I work for the post in another country where its medically prescribable and we have seen an uptick in suspicious small packages that reek of weed. The boss called the cops on the first one (years ago) and the cops were more interested in how we knew what marijuana smelled like and treated us like shit for calling them. Really we just wanted guidance on where our liability was on being part of the “chain” and how seriously we should take it and they were absolute cunts.

    So now in our office our unofficial policy is “You smelled pot? No you didnt. And if you did, how do you know its not being sent legally? And even if you’re fucking sure its sketchy as hell, you’re calling the cops and making the statements and dealing with it. You arent fucking my day up over some guy getting a quarter you fucking narc.”

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you want legal advice call a lawyer. Cops aren’t there to help you. They barely even understand the law and their only interest is fucking with you regardless if it’s legal or not.

      Cops are shit. You’re better off never interacting with them.

      • Delphia@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Our policy and procedure manual says call the cops. I knew they werent going to care about personal use amounts. But I didnt expect borderline hostility.

  • Trimatrix@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Knowing someone working for one of the three services you named…. They don’t really care. The people at the counter can’t accuse you of anything unless you are dumb enough to say you are shipping weed. After that, I would assume shipping is laxed due to your mentioned reasons.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I know people that have sent a lot of weed through the mail and as long as it doesn’t obviously reek of weed, they really don’t care.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Why would there be grounds for a lawsuit?

        Using their services subjects you to their terms of services…. Which subjects you to their policies on searches and such like…

        Of which there’s plenty of things shielding them from exactly this kind of accident.

        • TotesIllegit@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Iirc, the USPS can’t unilaterally search your letters or packages because, as a government institution, it would be a major violation of the 4th amendment- even postal inspectors need to get a warrant to open a letter or package that’s not expressly addressed to them if it was in the care of the USPS. I think the only exception is when it’s an ‘Operation Santa’ letter, and there are regulations in place for how those get handled to protect the privacy of the sender.

          The private parcel and package companies probably don’t have to abide by the same restrictions because they’re not government owned and operated.

          • Countess425@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s also an exception if they can’t read the delivery address; they have the authority to open the package to try to determine delivery address. So make sure your label can get a little wet and still be readable.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re acting like it’s difficult to get a warrant.

            It’s not.

            Warrants take 10-15 minutes for routine things. All they have to do is explain why they think there’s drugs in there, and convince the judge it meets the threshold- usually that’s pretty easy.

            • TotesIllegit@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It’s not hard, but it’s still a hurdle. Warrants also can’t be requested from a judge by just anyone in the USPS iirc, so the start of the process often relies on an employee taking time out of their day to report something they deem suspicious in the first place, likely in an understaffed and overworked office that’s not built to handle the package volume of the area they serve.

              • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                you might get away with it once or twice or even a lot.

                it’s the one time you don’t get away with it that hurts. Are you really sure you want to trust that the- frequently automated- package sniffing doesn’t happen, that the employee (whose monitored out the wazzoo…) doesn’t care about their job enough to not notice, and that they don’t happen to be one of those people who have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to weed?

                • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  I’d guess the number of packages that potentially smell like weed is pretty insane these days.

                  So the USPS, who took 3 weeks to send my priority mail package (containing no weed) about 350 miles, is going to flag all those packages (or even a worthwhile fraction of them), set them aside, get a warrant for each of them, open them, and then what?

                  First, they’ll be wrong some of the time because it’s jackasses sending delta8 hemp or whatnot.

                  Meanwhile they’ve added another complication to their already clearly shit scheduling and routing process, and they’ve done all this to enforce drug laws, which is not even a component of their purpose as an organization?

                  Don’t ask don’t tell makes much more sense, and I’m willing to bet that except in egregious cases where someone tries to send a pallet of weed or something, that’s what every shipping company does, except the occasional try-hard who pulls the alarm on something that smells funny the first time, then gets told to stop wasting everyone’s time.

                  We’re on the cusp of becoming post-prohibition with weed nationally. There is literally no upside to USPS or any shipping organization proactively looking for random weed shipments in packages.

  • Num10ck@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    maybe things have changed but years ago it was generally understood that a little bit once would be ignored but a huge amount or too often wouldn’t be ignored. best to double ziplock your ganja and stuff it into a half full shampoo bottle for travels, like an adult.

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It used to be more normal before legalization, now it’s mainly for people who buy in bulk. Local dispensaries are more convenient and actually pay their taxes

        • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I still hate that you can buy weed in Ontario and you can buy weed in New York, but bringing it across the border gets you arrested.

    • Today@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s totally normal in the US. I get a monthly subscription delivered along with other occasional orders. Former president cheeto signed the 2018 farm bill essentially making it federally legal. A few states have banned it, but most places it’s fine.

  • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Regardless of whether they care or not shipping something across state lines that is illegally federally would give me pause.

    I do wonder about how dispensaries are stocked now that you mention it.

    • AttackPanda@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      The lady at the local dispensary said that most of the product is grown in state to ensure it’s not a felony to cross state lines with it. She did say that in the earlier days there was shady practices in driving things up from Cali but now it’s all in state.

    • squiblet@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s very closely regulated in most states and everything in a dispensary is labeled, accounted for and on camera at all times. It’s really a bit absurd.