Medical Marijuana: US Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenge to Appeals Court Ruling Protecting State Medical Marijuana Laws
The US Supreme Court Monday declined to review a lower court decision that ordered Garden Grove, California, police to return marijuana seized from a medical marijuana patient. In November 2007, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal had ordered the marijuana returned, finding that "it is not the job of local police to enforce federal drug laws."
US Supreme Court
The California Supreme Court refused to review the case in March. Now, the US Supreme Court has followed suit. The refusals to hear the appeal means the two high courts have accepted the state appeals court's reasoning that California's medical marijuana law is not preempted by federal law, said medical marijuana advocates.
"It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joe Elford, chief counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the medical marijuana advocacy organization that represented Kha. "Perhaps, in the future local government will think twice about expending significant time and resources to defy a law that is overwhelmingly supported by the people of our state."
But Lois Bobak, a private attorney whose firm represents the city on a contract basis, said the issue in the case was a narrow one. "The US Supreme Court didn't issue any kind of ruling, it just failed to review a lower-court decision," Bobak told NBC Los Angeles. "You can't read too much into that fact. The city felt it was important to pursue the legal principle that police shouldn't be put in a position of returning a substance that is contraband under federal law."
It's federal law that needs to change, said ASA spokesman Kris Hermes. "The source of local law enforcement's resistance to upholding state law is an outdated, harmful federal policy with regard to medical marijuana," he said. "This should send a message to the federal government that it's time to establish a compassionate policy more consistent with the 13 states that have adopted medical marijuana laws."
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Legalize All Hemp?
Comment posted by David Dunn on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 5:05pmIt should also follow that if the enforcement of federal drug laws is not the duty of local and state law enforcement, then states having industrial hemp laws ought likewise exempt local and state law enforcement from enforcing federal laws against those growing, processing, manufacturing and selling hemp products.
States need to take the initiative and pass industrial hemp laws allowing for the growing, researching, testing, manufacturing and selling of hemp products. Hemp is not an enumerated object in the federal constitution. In Federalist Paper 39, cannabis-smoking James Madison wrote:
The federal government’s
States have a constitutional right to pass their own hemp laws including medical and recreational marijuana.
— Thomas Jefferson