{"id":75437,"date":"2024-05-20T11:52:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T19:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/05\/20\/federal-judge-grants-public-access-to-lawsuit-hearing-between-marijuana-companies-and-justice-department-this-week\/"},"modified":"2024-05-20T12:45:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T20:45:32","slug":"federal-judge-grants-public-access-to-lawsuit-hearing-between-marijuana-companies-and-justice-department-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/05\/20\/federal-judge-grants-public-access-to-lawsuit-hearing-between-marijuana-companies-and-justice-department-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Grants Public Access To Lawsuit Hearing Between Marijuana Companies And Justice Department This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

A federal judge has granted marijuana companies\u2019 request to allow public access to a hearing this week in a key case where they\u2019re seeking to shield in-state cannabis activity from federal enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Three days after the cannabis firms made the request\u2014without opposition from the Justice Department\u2014the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts\u2019s Western Division has now agreed to make Wednesday morning\u2019s hearing accessible via phone and\/or online streaming. Details on how interested parties can tune in are not yet available.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had argued that the \u201cdispute involves questions of public concern,\u201d noting that they\u2019ve \u201creceived a number of requests from members of the press who are seeking means to observe the hearing remotely because they are unable to attend the hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0suit against the federal government\u2014Canna Provisions v. Garland<\/em>\u2014is being led by multi-state operator Verano Holdings Corp.<\/a>\u00a0and the Massachusetts-based cannabis businesses Canna Provisions and Wiseacre Farm, along with Treevit CEO Gyasi Sellers. Plaintiffs are represented by the law firms Boies Schiller and Flexner LLP and Lesser, Newman, Aleo and Nasser LLP.<\/p>\n

Litigator David Boies\u2014whose list of prior clients includes the Justice Department, former Vice President Al Gore and plaintiffs in the case that led to the invalidation of California\u2019s ban on same-sex marriage\u2014is leading the suit.<\/p>\n

While the overarching case centers around the plaintiffs\u2019 arguments about the government\u2019s authority to enforce prohibition for intrastate cannabis activity, Wednesday\u2019s hearing will more narrowly focus on DOJ\u2019s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Judge Mark G. Mastroianni, an Obama appointee, didn\u2019t weigh in on the merits of the plaintiffs\u2019 request for public access to the hearing but simply granted it in an electronic order on Monday.<\/p>\n

The cannabis businesses have said in their lawsuit against the federal government that the prohibition of marijuana has \u201cno rational basis,\u201d pointing to officials\u2019 largely hands-off approach to the recent groundswell of state-level legalization.<\/p>\n

At issue in the case is the degree to which in-state cannabis activity affects interstate commerce, with the government\u00a0arguing that cannabis legalization attracts out-of-state tourists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DOJ argued in a filing last month that \u201cit is rational to conclude that the regulated marijuana industry in Massachusetts fuels a different kind of marijuana-related interstate commerce: marijuana tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Supreme Court held decades ago, Congress has the authority to regulate businesses that cater to tourists from out of state, even if the businesses\u2019 transactions occur wholly in-state,\u201d DOJ said in the brief.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs, meanwhile, contend the Constitution\u2019s Commerce Clause should preclude DOJ from interfering in state-legal activity because it is regulated within a state\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

The filing of the latest motion comes just shortly after the President Joe Biden announced that his administration is formally moving to reschedule marijuana<\/a>, with a proposal set to be published in the Federal Register this Tuesday to place cannabis in Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).<\/p>\n

Attorney General Merrick Garland, a chief defendant in the marijuana industry litigation, signed off on the proposed rule last Thursday. But reclassifying cannabis as Schedule III would not federally legalize it, so it seems unlikely that rulemaking will influence DOJ\u2019s position in the federal court case at hand.<\/p>\n

\n

Delaware Marijuana Sales Could Launch This Year Under New Bill To Allow Dual Licenses For Medical Cannabis Operators<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel<\/a> and Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Federal Judge Grants Public Access To Lawsuit Hearing Between Marijuana Companies And Justice Department This Week<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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A federal judge has granted marijuana companies\u2019 request to allow public access to a hearing this week in a key case where they\u2019re seeking to shield in-state cannabis activity from federal enforcement. Three days after the cannabis firms made the request\u2014without opposition from the Justice Department\u2014the U.S. District Court forContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"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\/75437"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75438,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75437\/revisions\/75438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}