by Nebula Haze
Can a potential cannabis grower get in legal trouble for ordering cannabis seeds online to the United States? Where can you safely buy marijuana seeds in the USA?
Can you get in trouble for buying marijuana seeds online?
I am not a lawyer or legal expert so please take anything I saw with a grain of salt. However, I’ve been growing since 2008 and running GrowWeedEasy.com to teach other people how to grow weed since 2010. Despite talking to literally thousands of growers who’ve ordered cannabis seeds online, I’ve never heard of a single example of someone getting in trouble with the law due to it. Not even in states where growing weed is strictly illegal, and not even as a secondhand story about someone else. It may be technically illegal to own cannabis seeds, but there don’t seem to be many prosecutions against cannabis seeds in the United States.
People rarely get in trouble for ordering cannabis seeds online.
However, that doesn’t mean there’s no risk.
You never know when it comes to the American legal system, but from what I’ve seen, your risks with ordering cannabis seeds online are typically social and involve growing as opposed to the actual ordering process. When growers get in trouble, it’s nearly always due to the wrong person finding out about the grow. Whether it’s a nosy neighbor, your plants smelling up the neighborhood, or telling someone you grow weed. But when it comes to seeds, don’t tell your friends you plan to buy seeds because if you suddenly start showing up with a ton of amazing weed they’re going to realize you’re growing it. So if you plan to order seeds online, keep it to yourself.
How to protect yourself when ordering seeds online
- [Most Important] Order from a trusted cannabis seed bank that sells good genetics. Don’t get scammed with bad seeds or someone who takes your money and doesn’t send anything.
- Don’t tell anyone in your life that you plan to buy cannabis seeds or grow. They will remember your words when you suddenly start overflowing with dank weed and realize you’re growing.
- (Optional) Pay with crypto like Bitcoin or Ethereum or another anonymous payment method (I personally order with my regular bank debit card but I live in California)
- (Optional) Order to a second home address if you have one, but this is likely unnecessary.
Where to order seeds safely in the United States?
Remember when it comes to buying seeds: Real seed businesses don’t contact you. They let you contact them. If anyone messages you to sell you seeds on social media, look out! It’s possible they will take your payment and send nothing. Always take a second to think before sending money to anyone, especially if they contact you (whether by DM, text message, phone call, email, etc.).
Recommended Marijuana Seed Sources
These sources have gotten great reviews from our readers:
- Seed Supreme – California, United States
- ILGM (I Love Growing Marijuana) – California, United States
- MSNL Seeds – Shipped out of the UK
Seed Supreme has the best cannabis seed selection of these options. They carry many unique strains from old classics to trendy newer genetics.
The Platinum Cookies plant I’m growing now from Seed Supreme is the one pictured here in the middle. So far it’s the fastest-growing plant in the tent (check out the grow journal in progress).
Ultimate Auto has the best yields of any auto-flowering strain I’ve grown so far. This plant produced over 4 oz per plant even with only a corner of the grow tent to itself.
The biggest downside to ILGM as a seed source is their website can be difficult to navigate and find the strains you’re looking for. Their strain search is wonky and sometimes the search results are unexpected. But hey, you may find new and interesting strains that way.
MSNL Seeds was founded by a geneticist and they only carry hand-selected strains. They have a relatively small strain selection but the yields, bud quality, and plant growth are excellent. Tends to be a little cheaper than other trustworthy seed banks.
I have had amazing luck with MSNL’s autoflowering strains, like this Auto Amnesia grown in a mini tent under a 100W LED grow light.
Example of those Auto Amnesia buds after being dried and cured.
