Acting on an emergency request from the Department of Justice, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday voted 7-1 to prohibit cannabis distribution by the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative to patients who qualify for the federal medical necessity defense while the case is on appeal. The case was originally brought as a civil suit to force the closure of several northern California patients’ cooperatives who had begun distributing cannabis as a medicine to patients who qualify under Proposition 215, the California medical marijuana law.
“This is a small bump in the road and the important issues in this case will be decided later,” said Robert Raich, Esq., lawyer for the OCBC. “It is a travesty that the Clinton-Gore administration is trying so vigorously to keep the only medicine that works away from patients who so desperately need it.”
On August 11, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied the federal government’s request for an emergency order to stop the OCBC from distributing cannabis to patients who qualify as having a medical necessity. Government lawyers then sought the emergency ruling from Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who referred the request to the full Court.
Writing in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the government “has failed to demonstrate that the denial of necessary medicine to seriously ill and dying patients will advance the public interest or that the failure to enjoin the distribution of such medicine will impair the orderly enforcement of federal criminal statutes.”
“While the issuance of this injunction by the high court was a disappointment, the Court was ruling on a narrow procedural issue,” said Keith Stroup, NORML Executive Director. “The far more important question of whether the protection afforded patients under Proposition 215 is valid was not before the Court at this time. Despite this ruling, Prop. 215 remains in effect in California.”
For more information, please contact Keith Stroup, NORML Executive Director at (202) 483-5500 or Robert Raich, Esq., lawyer for the OCBC at (510) 338-0700.
