Legal Conflicts on Medical Marijuana Enter a New Phase

In December, in a little-publicized amendment to the 2015 appropriations bill that one legal scholar called a “buried land mine,” Congress barred the Department of Justice from spending any money to prevent states from “implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

In the most advanced test of the law yet, Mr. Lynch’s lawyers have asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to “direct the D.O.J. to cease spending funds on the case.” In a filing late last month, they argued that federal officials continuing to work on his prosecution “would be committing criminal acts.”

Click to expand...