marijuana is not marijuana until the flowers of the hemp plant are prepared and cured. Then it is MJ, but then again try using that defense right?
In a botantical/pharmaceutical sense, that would be correct. The term "marijuana" specifically refers to dried flowers of the cannabis plant. But in a legal sense, this is dead wrong.
To correct this, and several other inaccuracies in this thread:
-With the single exception of explicitly licensed hemp seeds, it is against Federal law to possess viable cannabis seeds
anywhere in the USA.
The State of CA may be hunky-dory with you having a bagful of seeds in your pocket and 10 Skunkadelic plants in your cupboard, but Uncle Sam is not, and mere possession of viable seeds is a Federal felony.
-Customs is a branch of the Federal gov't (see above).
-In practice, prosecuting cases takes time and money, and proving intent can be difficult. Lets say a bunch of seeds arrived at your home. With the shippers outside American jurisdiction, it might not be so easy to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you ordered them. For example, maybe someone else ordered them in your name. Now lets say they arrived in someone else's name. Even harder. . .
So customs policy is generally just to confiscate intercepted contraband (including seeds), rather than turn the issue over to local or Federal law enforcement for investigation/prosecution. But *could* customs do that? Yes absolutely they could, and they probably would do it if the contraband in question were offensive enough, or if you were under investigation for some reason.
-In England (where the Attitude seed bank is located) you're legally allowed to possess ungerminated hemp cannabis seeds, but NOT in the USA.
-Again, by American Federal law, viable cannabis
seeds are explicitly defined as marijuana. That may not make botanical/pharmaceutical sense but that's what the law says. So you do NOT need to have flowers or even any product containing THC to fall afoul of Federal possession laws. In theory you could go to Federal prison over one viable marijuana seed.
-State laws on this vary. Some States may permit viable seeds under certain circumstances; some definitely do not under any circumstance. But again, since every State is part of the USA, and since Federal law trumps State law, seeds are illegal everywhere in the USA.
-Now should the Federal gov't try to actually prosecute anyone over mere seeds possession, the burden would be on it to show that said seed(s) were actually viable. The only real way to do that would be to try and germinate them. But assuming an agent of the prosecutor planted them, and the seeds were viable (and that would be the whole point of ordering them, no?), that defense would evaporate.