Attorneys for a group of scientists and military veterans seeking to force the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to formally reconsider marijuana\u2019s restrictive federal classification made their case on Thursday to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.<\/p>\n
Questions from judges, however, focused less on the challenge\u2019s merits than the procedural questions it raises.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a really odd case,\u201d Judge William Fletcher said at the beginning of the oral arguments, which lasted roughly 30 minutes. While the lawsuit hinges on DEA\u2019s rejection of a cannabis rescheduling petition last year, the judge noted, the veterans and researchers now suing DEA weren\u2019t party to that petition.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour clients filed no petition. You appeal the denial of somebody else\u2019s petition,\u201d he said. \u201cSomehow that doesn\u2019t strike me as reasonable to allow somebody to come in this way, without themselves having filed a petition. To piggyback on the denial of such an odd, abbreviated petition just doesn\u2019t fit with the way the administrative process is supposed to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit\u2014filed last year by cannabis researcher Sue Sisley of the Scottsdale Research Institute, the Battlefield Foundation and veterans Lorenzo Sullivan and Gary Hess\u2014centers largely on the DEA\u2019s 2020 denial of a one-page cannabis rescheduling petition<\/a> filed by a separate individual. In its response, the agency argued that marijuana has no currently accepted medical value.<\/p>\n\n Lawyers for the group are appealing that decision, asking the court to order DEA to initiate a formal rulemaking process, which would involve expert testimony and public comment. They say DEA\u2019s summary dismissal of past rescheduling petitions has not only been unconstitutional but also prevented important research into the drug\u2019s medical potential.<\/p>\n Matt Zorn, one of the lawyers for the petitioners, told Marijuana Moment on Friday that he is \u201cpleased that we got our day in court.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll a litigant can ask for is the opportunity to brief their case and explain their case to the judges\u2014and judges had legitimate concerns,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought we addressed those concerns, and I think we presented a real problem for them. Despite the quote-unquote odd procedural posture, I do think it\u2019s proper.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur hope is that the panel reaches the merits, because there frankly really isn\u2019t that much dispute that what\u2019s going on here is wrong,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s the bottom line takeaway. Nobody\u2019s really disputing that the agency\u2019s interpretation of \u2018no currently accepted medical use\u2019 is wrong. What we\u2019re arguing about whether or not we should be the ones to bring it to a court\u2019s attention.\u201d<\/p>\n At the arguments on Thursday, Zorn told the judges that it is \u201ca well-established principle of administrative law that even if you miss the notice and comment period, you might have the ability to come in and challenge a rule.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact of the matter is these petitions generally take a really long time. This is a pure legal issue. It\u2019s ripe for decision\u2026 My clients are suffering injuries from the failure to engage in rulemaking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs initially filed their lawsuit, Sisley v. DEA<\/em>, against the federal agency in May of last year, contending that DEA\u2019s justification for maintaining a Schedule I status for cannabis violates the Constitution on numerous grounds. DEA attempted to dismiss the case, but the Ninth Circuit rejected that request in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n During oral arguments, Zorn pointed to a number of cases as precedent to justify why his clients should be allowed to challenge DEA\u2019s denial of the petition, most notably Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em>, in which that state challenged the denial of a petition filed by another party. But judges pointed out that no case he cited clearly states who can and can\u2019t rightfully appeal such an agency decision.<\/p>\n \u201cNeither side is really citing case law that is directly on point here,\u201d Zorn acknowledged. \u201cI have not found any statute that is anything like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice Department lawyer Daniel Aguilar, who represented the federal government at the oral argument, insisted that the court should dismiss the case and allow the group to file their own DEA rescheduling petition.<\/p>\n But the Ninth Circuit judges were similarly skeptical of the government\u2019s stance. Aguilar argued that in Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em>, for example, Massachusetts was allowed to appeal a denial of a petition it wasn\u2019t a party to because of its special status as a U.S. state. To back up his position, he pointed to part of an opinion by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.<\/p>\n Judge Fletcher, however, seemed to correct Aguilar on his interpretation. \u201cThe sovereign stuff that Justice Kennedy writes in that opinion goes entirely to whether or not it has a cognizable injury,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really is not talking about whether or not Massachusetts has the right to appeal the denial of somebody else\u2019s petition.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ninth Circuit panel also included Judges Paul Watford and Daniel Collins.<\/p>\n Separate from the issue of standing, lawyers for the scientists and veterans have have raised questions about DEA\u2019s reliance on scheduling standards that they feel are arbitrary and misinterpret federal law. To support that claim, they pointed to a federal memo from 1972.<\/p>\n The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, a predecessor to DEA, sent a letter to the White House replying to a rescheduling petition to NORML, wherein it similarly referenced statutory obligations to maintain the existing schedule, rather than argue the merits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe concluded that the only alternative was to reject the petition,\u201d the letter states. \u201cThe Attorney General simply has no powers to grant the petitioner\u2019s request.\u201d<\/p>\n Petitioners in the case also argue that government\u2019s practice of granting the attorney general authority to schedule drugs based on his or her interpretation of international treaty obligations constitutes an \u201cunconstitutional delegation of legislative authority.\u201d<\/p>\n When the World Health Organization (WHO) schedules drugs under international treaties, Zorn argued, \u201cthe United States automatically has to do the same thing. The attorney general has no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n The arrangement unconstitutionally vests power in WHO and the attorney general\u2019s office, he said, rather than keeping it with Congress.<\/p>\n Sisley, the lawsuit\u2019s lead plaintiff and president of the Scottsdale Research Institute (SRI), is a DEA-licensed researcher focused on investigating the therapeutic potential of cannabis for veterans. She\u2019s sought to become a federally authorized marijuana manufacturer so that her facility can produce higher quality products for studies.<\/p>\n SRI has already taken the feds to court over past marijuana decisions, with results to show for it.\u00a0The institute successfully\u00a0forced DEA to issue an update on the status of their application processing<\/a>\u00a0and then got the Justice Department to hand over a \u201csecret\u201d memo that\u00a0DEA allegedly used to justify a delay in deciding those proposals<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat has been animating all of these lawsuits is that we can\u2019t get the research done,\u201d Zorn told Marijuana Moment last year, shortly after the current challenge was filed in district court. \u201cThe ideal result is that we stop filing lawsuits and the administration decides it wants to support cannabis research. But until that happens, we\u2019ll be in the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, Sisley and SRI received preliminary approval from DEA<\/a> to be one of the first new federally authorized cultivators of cannabis for research.<\/p>\n Bill To Let Researchers Study Marijuana From Dispensaries Approved In Congressional Committee<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel<\/a> and Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post Federal Appeals Court Hears Marijuana Rescheduling Arguments In Case Against DEA<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for a group of scientists and military veterans seeking to force the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to formally reconsider marijuana\u2019s restrictive federal classification made their case on Thursday to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Questions from judges, however, focused lessContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48218,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48217\/revisions\/48218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Federal Appeals Court Hears Marijuana Rescheduling Arguments In Case Against DEA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"