{"id":8111,"date":"2018-03-04T18:51:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T18:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=12677"},"modified":"2018-03-04T18:51:13","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T18:51:13","slug":"ny-judge-tosses-challenge-to-federal-marijuana-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/ny-judge-tosses-challenge-to-federal-marijuana-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"NY: Judge Tosses Challenge To Federal Marijuana Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/ny-judge-tosses-challenge-to-federal-marijuana-laws\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>A judge early last week dismissed a lawsuit challenging federal laws criminalizing marijuana as unconstitutional, saying the five plaintiffs had failed to pursue changes in the drug\u2019s legal status by first going through the Drug Enforcement Administration.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein did not address the plaintiffs claim that marijuana has medical benefits, but said the DEA has the authority to make that decision and not the courts.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs included former NFL player Marvin Washington, the co-founder of a company that sells hemp-based sports products, Army veteran Jose Belen, who said the horrors of the Iraq War left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, and two young children who use marijuana to treat medical conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Hiller, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said they would appeal the decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cResigning the plaintiffs to the petitioning administrative process is tantamount to a death sentence for those patients who need cannabis to live,\u201d said Hiller, who had earlier argued that the administrative process takes an average of nine years.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Belen called the ruling disappointing, \u201cbut just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are on the right side of history, and we will take this fight to the Supreme Court if necessary,\u201d Belen said.<\/p>\n<p>Hellerstein earlier had evinced sympathy for the plaintiffs\u2019 claims that medical marijuana had helped them, but appeared to take the government\u2019s argument seriously that the plaintiffs should petition the DEA.<\/p>\n<p>The suit originally was filed in July as a growing number of states broke with the federal government and declared marijuana to be legal. Thirty have now legalized it in some fashion, including six for recreational use.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit challenged the listing of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, a category that includes heroin and LSD. The federal government says drugs under that classification have no accepted medical use and cannot legally be prescribed.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs had asked the court for a permanent injunction preventing the government from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act as it pertains to cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>Marijuana got its Schedule I designation as part of the ranking or \u201cscheduling\u201d of drugs under the 1970 act.<\/p>\n<p>Government lawyers had argued there were logical reasons to classify marijuana as a dangerous drug under federal law.<\/p>\n<p>A message seeking comment from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A judge early last week dismissed a lawsuit challenging federal laws criminalizing marijuana as unconstitutional, saying the five plaintiffs had&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/420-news\/international-cannabis-news\/ny-judge-tosses-challenge-to-federal-marijuana-laws\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1616,9,1,3],"tags":[4184],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}