Medical marijuana

[Copper10-8]

On 9/2/2022 at 2:34 PM, chengkp75 said:

Actually, when the ship is in US waters, only certain US laws apply.  The basic tenet of maritime law regarding the overlapping of jurisdiction between flag state and port state, is that flag state takes precedence unless the "safety or good order" of the port state are affected.  So, basically, port state (US) laws govern things exterior to the ship (pollution, customs, immigration, commerce and taxation, and crimes against the port state's citizens), all things internal (i.e. drug usage) to the ship are governed by the flag state laws, regardless of where the ship is.  The big thing to remember is that all ships, regardless of flag state, are governed by the various IMO conventions, like the STCW and MLC, which have set up a zero tolerance for drug use onboard ships, which is why all cruise ships prohibit marijuana.

 

When you see local or federal drug enforcement officers boarding a foreign flag cruise ship in a US port, it is at the invitation of the Captain, not because the agency has jurisdiction.

 

100% correct, thanks Cheng! Just to add on to that, besides coming onboard per the invitation of the captain, federal agencies like Canada Borders Services Agency - CBSA (the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection - CBP) is in the habit of conducting unannounced inspections of crew living spaces for anything illegal. While working, I have escorted CBSA numerous times during those inspections in places like Victoria, Vancouver, Quebec City and Halifax, at times accompanied by their narcotic detection K-9s which tend to speed things up. Those inspections generally last two to three hours. Happy to say no HAL employees were ever in trouble at the conclusion of those type of inspections, at least at the ones I was involved in