In an appeals court case that targets the very core of U.S. cannabis prohibition, lawyers for the federal government warned this week that the legal challenge, if it succeeds, could risk upsetting the Biden administration's planned move of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
The government's filing comes a month after plaintiffs in the case—including multi-state marijuana operator Verano Holdings Corp. and the Massachusetts-based cannabis businesses Canna Provisions and Wiseacre Farm—filed an opening brief arguing that Congress in recent decades has "dropped any assumption that federal control of state-regulated marijuana is necessary."
"Congress has abandoned its goal of eradicating marijuana and has, in fact, expressly exempted it from federal enforcement in certain circumstances," the companies' opening brief said, pointing to policies embodied in a congressional budget rider that prevents federal funds from being used to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana as well as federal lawmakers' decision to allow marijuana legalization to proceed in the District of Columbia.
Read more at Marijuana Moment.