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A close friend (who is not the type to use Stack Exchange) and his family hope to soon enter Canada at the land border to visit my family. He and his family (wife and child) are US citizens. However, 15 years ago, when he was in his early 20s, he was denied entry to Canada because the border agents found cannabis in his car. It was a small amount of cannabis that he forgot was there in the car - and certainly not intentional trafficking. He was refused entry but not charged, and he has no other convictions in the US or elsewhere.

What level of concern should he and I have? What is the likelihood that he will be denied entry when he attempts to drive in with his family? Is there anything we can do beforehand to help his chances? Any specific approaches to dealing with the border agents(s)? For example, we are unsure if he should preemptively raise the issue with the gate agent versus just letting them ask their usual questions.

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    Would he travelling again via land border? In any case, "gate agent" isn't responsible for anything but seeing the U.S. passport, do you mean the primary inspection agent?
    – xngtng
    Commented May 27 at 17:54
  • This is something from Canadian customs about current offences of this type. It sounds as if they might be forgiving for something 15 years back - seeing as this can be now a monetary offense - but... Commented May 27 at 18:00
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    They still won't let him in with cannabis... And do not say anything "pre-emptively". Answer the questions you are asked, and don't dig your own grave – "Thank you Sir, we didn't know about that!" Commented May 27 at 19:28
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    Related question travel.stackexchange.com/questions/109183/…
    – Traveller
    Commented May 27 at 19:58
  • Can you let us know how it works out? Though I realize that a lot of this may be agent-on-duty discretion and not all that generalizable. Commented May 27 at 21:52

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