A federal judge is considering arguments on whether or not marijuana’s status as a Class I (no medical benefit, high addictive potential) controlled substance is unconstitutional.
If she rules on Tuesday that it’s unconstitutional (and no further appeals are filed), does that mean that on Wednesday all federal marijuana laws become null and void? If so, what does that mean for the 50 states (plus PR, USVI, and such)? Or would the ruling automatically nullify all state laws on the matter, too (meaning I can start my grow operation without fear of The Man)?
She will almost certainly stay her ruling to give the government time to file an appeal or otherwise limit it such that marijuana is not legalized. Should she not, the government will likely file an emergency appeal with a court of appeals, which would then stay the ruling until a full appeal of the issue was finished.
This is a trial court (US District Court) so the judge’s rulings do not form precedent. If the judge was to rule this way it would affect only the current trial. If the prosecutor appealed the ruling, the circuit court could establish a precedent, within their geographic circuit, one way or the other. (Yes, it’s constitutional, no it’s not.) If multiple circuits disagree on similar cases, that’s a good indicator that the Supreme Court will hear a case to settle the matter.
Not sure why it would affect state law’s. In NY the crime is (for example) criminal possession of marihuana. Whether or not it’s a Class I controlled substance isn’t a requirement.
The argument as I understand it is that the uneven prosecution of federal marijuana laws (they’ve backed off in states such as Colorado that have approved medical or recreational marijuana, e.g.) creates an equal protection issue.
That is one prong of the argument. (The defendant’s lawyer’s brief may be read here (PDF).)
The second prong is that the government’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, in the face of the fact that 23 states have legalized it for medicinal purpose, and that 70% of American doctors assert that it has valid medical use, is so arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable as to create a Fifth Amendment due process violation.
(The brief calls it a “Fifth Amendment equal protection” violation. It sounds more like due process to me, but I am not a lawyer.)
IF the judge agrees with the arguments, then the defendants get the charges thrown out. Assuming --for the moment – that the USA doesn’t appeal, then nothing much else happens immediately. Other people charged under marijuana laws in that judge’s court will certainly make the same argument and would expect a similar ruling (but if they don’t get it, all they could do is appeal to the higher court, which would probably take their own view of the unconstitutionality issue). People charged in other federal judge’s courts will start making the same argument, but the other judges could just say “Well, I disagree with that ruling and I’m free to make my own”.
But in fact the USA would certainly appeal. If the appellate court buys the defendant’s argument, then something does happen automatically: all the other trial courts in that appellate court’s area would be obligated to accept the line of argument. [But note, this is only for federal charges under federal laws, and has nothing to do with state laws]. Trial courts in other parts of the country are free to rule however they want (assuming the issue hasn’t been taken up by their appellate court), though defendants in those areas would certainly start raising the issue, and some judges no doubt would be willing to go along with an appellate court, even in a different district. The appeals process could go up the ladder, and were the US Supreme Court to take an appeal and say ‘yes, it is unconstitutional’ then ALL federal courts would be obliged to agree and rule accordingly. Of course, that’s going to happen with this SCOTUS about the same time that pigs fly our of my butt singing the Halleluiah Chorus, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that outcome.
I have a hard time believing that nobody has ever made this argument before 2015. The Controlled Substances Act was enacted in 1970. Surely somebody must have challenged marijuana’s classification before now. And if so, wouldn’t there be precedents establishing that the law is constitutional? How is a trial court going to ignore those precedents?
As slash2k points out above, their argument is based on the administration’s uneven enforcement due to their (recent) policy re: Colorado and Washington.
Ultimately, is it not a violation of due process for a Federal agency to say “I’m just going to ignore the fact that I have zero evidence of marijuana having “high addictive potential” and call it a schedule 1 drug anyway?”
It’s not that marijuana doesn’t have some risks for addiction, it’s that it is very difficult to even prove the addiction in the lab. It has been tried. The withdraw symptoms are so subtle they are almost undetectable - last I read, they were “dreams”.
Alcohol, cocaine, etc it is trivial to show the addiction. The symptoms are immediately and objectively obvious.
So if the law of the land says “this product is highly illegal if it is very blue”. Scientific evidence (a blue color detector) shows that a particular product is only a tiny bit blue.
A federal agency, tasked with deciding which products fall into the “highly illegal” category, declares by fiat that a certain leaf is “very blue”. At the time, the decision was defensible because “we don’t know how blue it is and it might be extremely blue”.
But now, that same agency has been given indisputable evidence that the blue-ness of the product is minimal. Continuing to declare by fiat that it is something other than reality is ultimately just taking laws written to say one thing and declaring you don’t care.
Aside from the outrageous classification as Sch I (look it up - not even heroin is Sch i - it and almost all the other opiates are in Sch II - and a whole lot of use have Sch II drugs on hand. Vicodin finally got put in Sch II (where it belongs).
Only one opiate is in Sch I.
The definition of Sch I is the key - these are drugs which the FDA has determined have NO POSSIBLE medicinal uses and must not be allowed anywhere, anytime*
except WWII, when the Japanese had control of traditional rope-making weeds - I have a video of a 16mm film encouraging farmers to plant marijuana (yes, “hemp”, like the rope). All that was required was a tax stamp.
Bullshit - look it up yourself - the Schedules are in Section 812. Schedule I includes 42 opiates, 22 opium derivatives (including heroin), and 17 “hallucinogens” (including marijuana).