Medical marijuana advocates sue federal prosecutors over crackdown - San Jose Mercury News Medical marijuana advocates sue federal prosecutors over crackdown By Josh Richman Oakland Tribune Posted: 10/27/2011 02:02:35 PM PDT Updated: 10/27/2011 02:40:51 PM PDT Medical marijuana advocates on Thursday sued U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Northern California's top federal prosecutor, asking a federal court to halt the recent crackdown on dispensaries. Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access argued that the Justice Department has "instituted a policy to dismantle the medical marijuana laws of the state of California and to coerce its municipalities to pass bans on medical marijuana dispensaries" by means of aggressive raids, criminal prosecutions of medical marijuana patients and providers, and threats to local officials who implement the state's law. ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford said that although the Obama administration is entitled to enforce medical marijuana laws, the 10th Amendment forbids it from using coercive tactics to hijack the state's lawmaking functions. "This case is aimed at restoring California's sovereign and constitutional right to establish its own public health laws based on this country's federalist principles," he said. California's four U.S. attorneys -- including the Northern District's Melinda Haag, who is named as a defendant in this lawsuit -- this month announced a multipronged crackdown on dispensaries across the state. They said they'd be focusing mostly on for-profit, retail-style, large operations that are not protected by state law, but marijuana advocates in recent weeks have said several law-abiding, locally regulated dispensaries have been targeted Advertisement nonetheless. The Supreme Court justices would have voted in favor of medical marijuana (hinted at); however, one justice argued that the case wasn't about whether medical marijuana should be allowed or not. The case was whether the Federal government had the right to enforce their laws, which they we all know the feds do. This is different, I really hope the first judge rules in our favor.
Marijuana Group Americans for Safe Access Sues Obama Administration Over California Dispensary Crackdown - Los Angeles News - The Informer Americans for Safe Access, a pro-marijuana legalization group, today announced it has filed suit against the Obama administration for its new crackdown earlier this month on California dispensaries. It's a strange effort in that marijuana is a Schedule I outlaw drug in the United States and feds have free reign to crack down regardless of California's medical legalization. However, ASA argues it has a leg to stand on. ASA chief counsel Joe Elford: Although the Obama Administration is entitled to enforce federal marijuana laws, the Tenth Amendment forbids it from using coercive tactics to commandeer the law-making functions of the State. This case is aimed at restoring California's sovereign and constitutional right to establish its own public health laws based on this country's federalist principles. The ASA claims that the crackdown by four U.S. Attorneys in California, announced earlier this month and aimed at letting all Golden State pot shops know that they're illegal under American law, seeks to get local cities and counties to outlaw the retailers or face federal action in their jurisdictions. The ASA: ... The same U.S. Attorneys have been sending threatening letters to several municipalities across the state in an attempt to undermine the passage of local medical marijuana regulations. One the eve of a presidential election year, the U.S. Department of Justice has gone out of its way to say that President Obama himself had nothing to do with the crackdowns, which so far have spared pot shops in the city of L.A., the nation's dispensary capital. Read more about ASA's suit here.
i would love for this to turn out in our favor. however, if it doesn't, ill still be smoking just as much weed as i already do.
We've always had a case. They always delay and delay and delay until you give up or they just keep delaying. This won't do anything but maybe halt the dismantling a bit.
What would be great is if they win the suit. It clearly isn't right. What does it go to? Federal court? (I skimmed through the articles)
Yes federal courts. The point is that this will most likely end up in the Supreme court. And in a case like this, they can't really stall it like their doing in the federal medical defense case. That case could also get medical weed legalized and could easily end up in the Supreme Court.
You talking about the Steele Smith case? I've been folowing that thing for almost 2 years now. That trial is never going to happen. How is it that this one will be able to be pushed through?
A single legal victory in this regard will begin a landslide of suits for anti-prohibition minded people. Lawyers are greedy scum. They have the power to fight this, but don't want to waste valuable time and resources if they think they can't win. Once precedent has been set, those leeches will be garnering support for class action and copycat suits literally overnight.
Because they asked for a federal injunction to stop the actions before the 45 day deadline. The judge will hopefully give the injunction then rule (or rule quickly). The appeals court right before the Supreme Court, ruled in favor of Raich. The Supreme Court reversed it. Basically, they could be stalled for probably 6-10 months with hopefully a favorable ruling (Gonzalez vs Raich took 7 months to be ruled by the Supreme Court). We'll see how the first federal judge takes it. Its still going to be a long journey, but I don't see how they can just keep stalling it like they do with Steele Smith.
Here is an article I found from here: John Paul Stevens, Marijuana Case, Commerce Clause | Lawcrossing.com \tSix Plants of Pot By James Kilpatrick Justice John Paul Stevens won last week in a major marijuana case before the Supreme Court. Two seriously ill women lost, 6-3, but the decision against them was a bummer. In Gonzales v. Raich , the Supreme Court produced a majority opinion that trampled upon some of the most basic principles of constitutional jurisprudence. \t Recent Articles The Items Were Worth $177 A Great Case for Taking Big Brother In the High Court How Cruel Is ''Cruel''? The Score Was Justice 7, Law 2 + Archives \t These principles are embodied in the Commerce Clause and in the 10th Amendment. The former vests power in Congress "to regulate commerce among the several states." But this case did not involve the regulation of commerce at all. The latter says that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The power to regulate the practice of medicine is clearly a power reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.. The facts are not in dispute. Angel Raich suffers from "excruciating pain" that is relieved by inhalation of cannabis. Diane Monson similarly relies upon marijuana to relieve "a variety of serious medical conditions." When other medications failed, their doctors turned to California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996. The law authorizes physicians to prescribe marijuana for "seriously ill" patients and protects the doctors from criminal prosecution. In August 2002, federal agents raided Monson's home and destroyed all six of her cannabis plants. Raich is too ill to cultivate her own plants. She relies upon two caretakers who provide enough marijuana, without charge, to meet her medical needs. Two years ago, when further prosecution loomed, the two women sought an injunction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found in their favor: Their use of marijuana under a doctor's prescription is "different in kind from drug trafficking." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appealed. Last week's opinion in the Supreme Court opens the way for him to pursue prison terms for the two California women and their doctors. The laws of 10 other states are similarly voided. Justice Stevens' opinion is remarkably unconvincing. He conceded that "the case is made difficult by respondents' strong arguments that they will suffer irreparable harm because, despite a congressional finding to the contrary, marijuana does have valid therapeutic purposes." Even so, Stevens found these "troubling facts" irrelevant. Well-settled law, he concluded, controls a finding that the federal act is a valid exercise of federal power. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor filed a powerful dissent. Looking back to an historic case in 1937, she cited one of federalism's chief virtues — that it promotes innovation: "It allows for the possibility that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." The majority's opinion, said O'Connor, "is tantamount to removing meaningful limits on the Commerce Clause." Applied to the facts in the case, the majority's definition of economic activity "is breathtaking." Indeed, the court threatens "to sweep all of productive human activity into federal regulation reach." Where is the commerce in this case? O'Connor could not find it: "The homegrown cultivation and personal possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has no apparent commercial character." The marijuana at issue "was never in the stream of commerce and neither were the supplies for growing it." There is "simply no evidence that homegrown medicinal marijuana users" constitute a discernible, let alone substantial market in illicit drugs. Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting, pointed out that Monson and Raich "neither buy nor sell the marijuana" on which they rely. The cannabis in their cases never crosses a state line. Their conduct "is purely intrastate and noncommercial." Nothing in the Constitution provides a warrant for Congress "to enact any law that bears some conceivable connection to the exercise of an enumerated power." The defendant Monson cultivates precisely six plants for personal use. If this is the kind of "commerce" that now becomes subject to federal regulation, said Thomas, no meaningful limits remain upon federal power. "The majority is not interpreting the Commerce Clause, but rewriting it." The case now goes back to the lower courts, but it is up to Congress to reverse the high court's opinion by reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule II substance that has "a currently acceptable medical use." Surely common sense dictates a sensible rewriting of a law that in its ruthless application makes no sense at all.