July 7

California Attorney General Kamala Harris — who already had joined friend-of-the-court briefs defending the constitutionality of last year’s federal health care reform law in the 6th, 4th and 11th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal — has now done so again in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

“Health care reform saves lives, and that is why I am determined to protect this law,” Harris said in her news release, noting that the filing comes one week after the 6th Circuit became the first federal appeals court to uphold the law’s constitutionality.

Harris and nine other attorneys general argue in the new brief that the Constitution grants Congress broad powers to regulate interstate commerce and that the decision to buy health insurance has a significant impact on interstate commerce because it allows the formation of risk pools, lowers health care costs nationally and reduces the cost of uncompensated care.

“The law strikes an appropriate, constitutional balance between federal and state authority over the health care system by creating federal requirements, backed by federal funding, to expand access to affordable coverage, while conferring considerable latitude to allow states to decide how best to design a system of federally supported coverage that works well for their citizens,” the brief argues.

Joining California in this brief are Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New York, Oregon and Vermont.
– Josh Richman

July 8

A coalition of marijuana advocates say their lawsuit filed in May deserves credit for forcing the federal government to answer a request to remove marijuana from the list of most-restricted drugs.

The government’s answer, of course, was “No.” But the advocates say at least this will free them to go to an appeals court to directly challenge the government’s claim that marijuana has no medical value.

The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, a group that contains the Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, had filed its petition in 2002 asking the Drug Enforcement Administration to remove marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, which lists drugs deemed to have a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in the United States and a lack of accepted safety under medical supervision.

Since the petition was filed, the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians both urged the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance. But a previous cannabis marijuana rescheduling petition filed in 1972 went unanswered for 22 years before being denied, and after nine years of waiting, the coalition in May asked a judge to force the DEA to answer within 60 days. The DEA placed its answer in the Federal Register.

“Although this superficially looks like a defeat for the medical marijuana community, it simply maintains the status quo,” American for Safe Access Chief Counsel Joe Elford said in a news release.

“More importantly, however, we have foiled the government’s strategy of delay and we can now go head-to-head on the merits, that marijuana really does have therapeutic value.”

Elford said his group will appeal the government’s denial of the petition to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia as soon as possible.

Americans for Safe Access noted the petition denial was sent to the coalition’s lawyers last Thursday, one day after the Justice Department issued a memo advising the nation’s federal prosecutors that anyone who cultivates, sells or distributes marijuana on a large scale — including local or state officials in jurisdictions with laws allowing the drug’s medical use — could face federal prosecution.

“The federal government is making no bones about its aggressive policy to undermine medical marijuana,” ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer said. “And we’re prepared to take the Obama Administration to court over it.”

Source: contracostatimes.com