Doing business in Canada from the US

[kal_el]

I am partnering up with a Canadian to run a medical marijuana help site in Canada, I live in the US. This is an internet business that members pay to join. It is legal in Canada, not in the US.
Can I get into trouble for running this from the US?
Can I get in trouble if servers and website are located in Canada?
Can I handle the payments in the US?


Well, it is a service site, we are not supplying anything to anyone.
Payments come from membership.
This business is legal in Canada. I will have everything located in Canada except for myself. Servers, website, bank accounts and anything else will be based in Canada.
So if I run everything from Canada, could I still run into problems?

 

[dee_dub]

What exactly will the business of the website be? A "help site" is a little vague. Considering there will be payments to be handled, I expect you will be connecting patients with suppliers. You need to be exceedingly careful about this - the fact that medicinal marijuana is legal in Canada does not mean that all ways of acquiring it are legal here.

I would suspect that you could quite likely get in trouble in the US if the business you conduct is illegal in the US. Having servers or processing payments there may be enough for local authorities to take jurisdiction. Even if you're not trafficking per se, you might be liable under conspiracy or proceeds of crime legislation. I'd get some serious legal advice before embarking on this venture.

 

[kal_el]

Well, it is a service site, we are not supplying anything to anyone.
Payments come from membership.
This business is legal in Canada. I will have everything located in Canada except for myself. Servers, website, bank accounts and anything else will be based in Canada.
So if I run everything from Canada, could I still run into problems?