The sponsors of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment passed 2014 aimed to prevent the federal government from meddling in state medical marijuana policy. The battle between the medical marijuana lobby and law enforcement reached new heights when a California federal judge gave the amendment teeth this week. Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer supported its intention that the department of justice may not use federal money “to prevent such states from implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana”.
The Case against MAMM and Lynette Shaw-
Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana (MAMM) and its founder Lynette Shaw were in the spotlight. They had federal injunctions against them for providing medical marihuana under the conditions of the California program, and were asking for relief. The justice department took up the position that the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment did not apply to dispensaries or individuals, and merely prevented it from “impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws.”
This ran counter to the motives of amendment authors’ Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Sam Farr (D-Calif.) Their plan had been to counter efforts of the DOJ to launch a renewed onslaught on the medical marijuana industry in California, where the product has been legal since 1996 – and providers are cooperating with state regulations. Messrs. Rohrabacher and Farr sided strongly with MAMM, calling the prosecution and conviction “a violation of the law”.
The Decision in Their Favor-
Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer sided with the defense. He lifted the injunctions on the basis that the DOJ cannot prosecute legitimate medical marijuana providers because the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment denies it the right.
“It defies language and logic for the Government to argue that it does not ‘prevent’ California from ‘implementing’ its medical marijuana laws by shutting down these same heavily-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries,” he wrote. “And contrary to the Government’s representation, the record here does support a finding that Californians’ access to legal medical marijuana has been substantively impeded by the closing of dispensaries and the closing of MAMM in particular.”
The Broader Implications for Medical Marijuana-
Marijuana is legal for medical use in 23 states plus District of Columbia. The Department of Justice has been pursuing its own agenda on the basis that providing medical marijuana is a federal crime. Now that the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment has authority, it will have to back off. This is more than a symbolic victory. It is a major step forward for the right to palliative marijuana.