Cannabis businesses lose court challenge to US Marijuana ban
Federal Judge Dismisses Massachusetts Cannabis Businesses’ Challenge to Federal Marijuana Prohibition.
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by several Massachusetts cannabis businesses who argued the federal prohibition on marijuana is unconstitutional, saying only the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn its 2005 ruling upholding the law.
Cannabis businesses represented by prominent litigator David Boies had urged U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni in Springfield to conclude the Supreme Court's ruling could not be applied anymore because the landscape surrounding marijuana regulation had changed so much over two decades.
In that case, Gonzales v. Raich, the high court held that under the Commerce Clause, Congress had the authority to criminalize the possession and use of marijuana even in states that permitted its use for medical purposes as it did in the Controlled Substances Act.
But Mastroianni, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, wrote, opens new tab "the relief sought is inconsistent with binding Supreme Court precedent and, therefore, beyond the authority of this court to grant."
He rejected additional arguments that the ban violated the business' due process rights, saying "there is simply no precedent for concluding that the Plaintiffs enjoy a fundamental right to cultivate, process, and distribute marijuana."
Mastroianni stressed that the businesses were not without other avenues to seek relief, saying they could try to get their arguments before the Supreme Court and remain "free to advocate for marijuana to be reclassified or removed from the CSA."
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Joshua Schiller, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Boies Schiller & Flexner, in an interview said the ruling was expected and that his clients would press their case on appeal, which could ultimately involve taking the matter to the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit was filed in October by Massachusetts retailer Canna Provisions, marijuana delivery business owner Gyasi Sellers, grower Wiseacre Farm and publicly traded multistate operator Verano Holdings (VRNO.NLB), opens new tab.
In challenging enforcement of the CSA as applied to their businesses, the plaintiffs pointed to shifts in how the federal government approached marijuana enforcement as a reason to conclude the Supreme Court's 2005 ruling no longer applied.
As the number of states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use has grown to 38, including Massachusetts, the U.S. Justice Department and Congress have taken steps to abandon their efforts to block the drug's use, their lawyers argued.
Most recently in April, the Justice Department moved to make marijuana use a less serious federal crime by reclassifying it as a Schedule III drug instead of Schedule I, which is reserved for drugs with a high potential for abuse.
Boies during a hearing in May pointed to a 2021 statement that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a different case in which he said the 2005 ruling's reasoning may no longer apply and that the ban "may no longer be necessary or proper."
The case is Canna Provisions Inc v. Garland, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, No. 3:23-cv-30113.
For the plaintiffs: David Boies and Joshua Schiller of Boies Schiller & Flexner
For the U.S.: Jeremy Newman of the U.S. Department of Justice
