Medical Marijuana Case Rejected by U.S. Supreme Court

The hundreds of thousands of California residents who make use of medicinal marijuana by way of a 1996 state law rested a little easier on Monday, May 18, when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Proposition 215. The appeals came from the counties of San Diego and San Bernardino, both of which opposed the obligation to comply with the California law that conflicted with federal drug laws.

It was not the first time that a county in California challenged the law, but the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court was the furthest that a legal challenge has gone in the decade-plus since the law was passed.

California was the first state to pass a medicinal marijuana law, one that was subsequently duplicated by 12 other states. Proposition 215 was also known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, and it was passed by California votes in November of 1996 by a measure of 56-44 percent. With a doctor’s recommendation, a patient was then allowed to contact a dispensary that grows and distributes marijuana to obtain the amount prescribed by the medical professional for treatment of an illness or condition. Patients and growers alike were protected by the law against prosecution on the basis of federal drug law violations.

However, many counties in the state decided to refuse compliance based on the priority of federal law. And under the Bush Administration, federal officials took many opportunities to raid dispensaries and arrest patients in possession of marijuana, and the lines between the state and federal laws remained blurred. That was until the Obama Administration and its U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder vowed to respect states’ rights and ordered that Drug Enforcement Agency raids cease. However, if local officials specifically request the intervention of federal law enforcement, the DEA reserves the right to conduct raids.

Meanwhile, two counties continued their legal challenges to the law, appealing their cases all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court after the California Supreme Court refused to hear the cases. Lawyers representing San Diego and San Bernardino objected to the requirement that officials issue identification cards to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest or prosecution on the basis that federal laws were being violated.

San Diego Country lawyer Thomas Bunton said, “The state law authorizes individuals to engage in conduct that the federal law prohibits. We are disappointed that the court did not take the case to resolve what we believe was a conflict between federal and state law.”

But the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the cases, and its rejection of the appeals meant that the state law must be upheld per the decision of the District Courts of Appeals in 2008.

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) attorney Joe Elford, one of the parties representing patients in the case, commented, “No longer will local officials be able to hide behind federal law and resist upholding California’s medical marijuana law.”

All in all, there are ten counties in California—Colusa, Madera, Mariposa, Modoc, Mono, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, San Diego, and San Bernardino—still refusing to issue identification cards per patient requests. However, due to the U.S. Supreme Court decision, San Diego is one county that has vowed to introduce a resolution to approve the cards and comply with the state law. And there is a pending lawsuit filed by ASA against Solano for its refusal to comply, and it is expected that the California courts will require Solano to comply.