WASHINGTON, DC — The organizations and individuals behind a decade-long effort to reschedule marijuana out of the Controlled Substance Act’s (CSA) Schedule I have now complied with a vow they made when the DEA’s decision to reject the effort was upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington.
On Monday, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a writ of certiorari asking the US Supreme Court to review the case.
Filing the writ does not mean the Supreme Court will decide to take up the case. The high court receives thousands of such appeals each session, but actually decides to hear only a tiny percentage of them. This writ, however, has two things going for it: It is on the paid certiorari docket (most are not) and it argues that the Supreme Court needs to resolve conflicts between federal appellate courts.
With the appeal, petitioners are challenging what they call an unreasonable and unprecedented standard for proof of medical efficacy of marijuana set by the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the DEA’s denial of the petition..
“To deny that sufficient evidence is lacking on the medical efficacy of marijuana is to ignore a mountain of w. . . . . READ MORE
WASHINGTON, DC — Medical marijuana patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a petition for writ of certiorari today with the U.S. Supreme Court to appeal a January Circuit Court decision that maintained marijuana’s current federal status as one of the most dangerous drugs with no medical value. In the widely watched case ASA v. Drug Enforcement Administration, petitioners are challenging an unreasonable and unprecedented standard set by the District of Columbia Circuit, which also creates a federal appellate split on what constitutes proof of medical efficacy.
“To deny that sufficient evidence is lacking on the medical efficacy of marijuana is to ignore a mountain of well-documented studies that conclude otherwise,” said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford, who argued the appeal before the D.C. Circuit in October of last year. “The Court has unreasonably raised the bar for what qualifies as an ‘adequate and well-controlled’ study, thereby continuing the government’s game of ‘Gotcha.’”
On January 22nd, the D.C. Circuit granted plaintiffs standing — the right to sue the federal government to reclassify marijuana — but, in a READ MORE