Business
Federal Judge Rules Gun Ban for Weed Smokers Unconstitutional
A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled last week that a federal law that bans gun ownership by cannabis users is unconstitutional.
A federal judge in Oklahoma City ruled last week that a federal law that prohibits cannabis users from owning firearms is unconstitutional and must not be enforced by prosecutors. Citing a ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year that dramatically expanded gun rights, U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick dismissed a federal indictment charging an Oklahoma man with violating the ban, ruling that the prohibition denied the defendant of his right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Under current federal law, people who use cannabis are prohibited from owning or purchasing firearms because they are “an unlawful user of or addicted to” a controlled substance. The ban applies to all cannabis users, including those who use marijuana products that are legal under state law and the Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms for all Americans.
In May 2022, Jared Michael Harrison was arrested by police in Lawton, Oklahoma after officers found marijuana and a loaded revolver in his car during a traffic stop. Harrison told police he was on his way to work at a legal medical marijuana business, although he did not have a state-issued identification card authorizing him to use cannabis medicinally. Federal prosecutors subsequently charged Harrison under the nationwide ban on gun ownership by marijuana users.
Harrison’s attorneys challenged the gun prohibition for cannabis users, arguing that the ban is not consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of regulating firearms. The challenge cited a ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year in a case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that set new standards for interpreting the Second Amendment. Under that ruling, gun restrictions enacted by the government must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Judge Cites Recent Supreme Court Ruling
Wyrick, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, agreed with Harrison’s attorneys and ruled on Friday that the ban is unconstitutional, writing that “the mere use of marijuana carries none of the characteristics that the Nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation supports.” The judge rejected the argument of federal prosecutors that Harrison’s status as a marijuana user “justifies stripping him of his fundamental right to possess a firearm” and ruled that the federal ban on gun ownership “is not a constitutionally permissible means of disarming Harrison.”
Wyrick also noted that the use of cannabis is “not in and of itself a violent, forceful, or threatening act” and that Oklahoma is one of many states that permit the medicinal use of marijuana, despite the continued illegality of cannabis at the federal. Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, and the state has more than 2,000 licensed dispensaries where patients can obtain medical cannabis.
Laura Deskin, a public defender representing Harrison, said the ruling was a “step in the right direction for a large number of Americans who deserve the right to bear arms and protect their homes just like any other American.”
Brian Vicente, a founding partner of the cannabis and psychedelics law firm Vicente Sederberg LLP, said last week’s court decision in Oklahoma “is a significant expansion in the rights of cannabis consumers.”
“For decades, and across various states, medical cannabis patients have been asked to choose between participating in their state’s legal cannabis program or owning a firearm,” Vicente wrote in an email. “This federal court decision secures the rights of adults to both use cannabis and own guns and effectively removes the restriction, and associated stigma, that these adults face. This is part of a broader trend of conservative states embracing marijuana policy, with both Alabama and Mississippi establishing medical cannabis programs in 2022 and Oklahoma poised to legalize cannabis on March 7 of this year.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/federal-judge-rules-gun-ban-for-weed-smokers-unconstitutional/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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