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[Metaphoreus]

The thread title is slightly misleading, but an accurate title would have been unwieldy, and this one is mostly taken from the article quoted below:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday banned the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana cases if no state laws were broken.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the federal agency to show that 10 pending cases in California and Washington state violated medical marijuana laws in those states before continuing with prosecutions.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but Congress has barred the Justice Department from spending money to prevent states from regulating the use or sale of medical pot.

Federal prosecutors argued unsuccessfully that Congress meant only to bar the department from taking legal action against states and that it could still prosecute individuals who violate federal marijuana laws. The court rejected that, saying that medical marijuana-based prosecutions prevent the states from giving full effect to their own measures.

If you're bored, you can read the opinion (PDF) for yourself. For a shorter read, Eugene Volokh has an excerpt from the opinion available here. Here's his summary:

This is big. Starting in December 2014, Congress has provided that “[n]one of the funds made available … to the Department of Justice may be used … to prevent [various] States from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana” (§ 542 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act). Today, the Ninth Circuit held (in United States v. McIntosh) that federal judges should enforce this law by stopping prosecutions for conduct that is authorized by state medical marijuana laws[.]

But, importantly:

DOJ does not prevent the implementation of rules authorizing conduct when it prosecutes individuals who engage in conduct unauthorized under state medical marijuana laws. Individuals who do not strictly comply with all state-law conditions regarding the use, distribution, possession, and cultivation of medical marijuana have engaged in conduct that is unauthorized, and prosecuting such individuals does not violate § 542.

Frankly, I don't think this reading of the law is obvious, but I do think it's a plausible one, and I welcome the ruling on policy grounds. For what it's worth, the law's sponsors have said that they think the law requires the outcome reached by the 9th Circuit. Bear in mind that this rule only applies (for now) in the states over which the 9th Circuit has jurisdiction, but it could very well influence government policy nationwide.

Neither an in-forum search nor a Google search returned any threads for this news. Roll me up and smoke me to alleviate the pain if old.

 

[leroidys]

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

 

[BlackNMild2k1]

one small step for 2 states... one large step for state kind?

 

[tearsofash]

So, in my state, a medical license is optional...If I don't have one I can still get federally charged?