{"id":617,"date":"2019-08-19T13:25:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T18:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/?p=617"},"modified":"2019-08-19T13:25:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T18:25:42","slug":"aba-passes-resolution-calling-upon-congress-to-reform-federal-marijuana-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/2019\/08\/aba-passes-resolution-calling-upon-congress-to-reform-federal-marijuana-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"ABA Passes Resolution Calling Upon Congress to Reform Federal Marijuana Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am pleased to report that the American Bar Association (ABA) just adopted a resolution urging Congress to reform federal marijuana laws. The resolution declares:<\/p>\n

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation to exempt from the Controlled Substances Act any production, distribution, possession, or 3 use of marijuana carried out in compliance with state laws;<\/p>\n

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7 801 et seq.; and<\/p>\n

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation to encourage scientific research into the efficacy, dose, routes of administration, or side effects of commonly used and commercially available cannabis products in the United States.<\/p>\n

I am particularly pleased because I served as the Reporter for the Task Force on Marijuana, Federalism, and Separation of Powers that drafted the resolution and the report that makes the case for it. You can find the full report here<\/a>. The ABA has also posted a short video of Steve Saltzburg very crisply and clearly making the case for the resolution (Resolution 104) to the ABA in mid-August. See here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this post, I write only for myself and not as Reporter for the Task Force (or in any other representative capacity for the ABA). I just want to highlight a few things about the resolution and accompanying report:<\/p>\n

1) The Task Force Report Highlights the Broad Appeal of Federal Reform<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The Task Force report makes the case for federal reform to a broad audience \u2013 i.e., it doesn\u2019t just appeal to individuals who already support legalization. In large part, it does this by explaining why the current tension between federal and state law is undesirable for everyone and not just for marijuana users \/ suppliers. For example, it points out that federal banking regulations force many state-licensed marijuana suppliers to transact all of their business in cash, which, in turn, makes it more difficult for government officials to ensure that those suppliers are complying with regulations (e.g., because cash transactions do not leave a paper trail). I suspect that the report\u2019s effort to portray the problems caused by current federal marijuana policy in a neutral light may help explain why the resolution got such resounding support.<\/p>\n

2) The Report Recognizes that Congress must Take the Lead with Reform<\/h4>\n

Each of the three clauses in the resolution is addressed to\u00a0Congress<\/em>. This is no mistake. As explained in my book (see, e.g., pages 272-276), the Executive Branch\u2019s authority to remake federal marijuana policy is limited (and may have been exhausted already). In other words, Congress must pass new legislation to resolve the tension between state and federal marijuana policy and thereby remove the problems caused by that tension; the Executive Branch cannot do this on its own.<\/p>\n

3) Congress Would Likely Need to Adopt a Package of Federal Reforms<\/h4>\n

As should be clear, the resolution makes three separate recommendations to Congress:<\/p>\n

1) Adopt the STATES Act (or something like it) to enable states to turn off the federal marijuana ban in certain circumstances [First Resolved Clause], and<\/p>\n

2) Re- or even de-Schedule marijuana under the CSA [Second Resolved Clause], and<\/p>\n

3) Support more research into marijuana [Third Resolved Clause]<\/p>\n

This multi-prong proposal recognizes that no single reform necessarily addressees all of the problems that arise from current federal marijuana policy. For example, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has declared that \u201c[a]s long as the Food and Drug Administration classifies marijuana as Schedule I [controlled substance] VA health care providers may not recommend it or assist Veterans to obtain it.\u201d See here<\/a>. Because of this policy, VA physicians would not be allowed to recommend marijuana to their patients even if Congress adopted something like the STATES Act<\/em> \u2013 after all, marijuana would remain on Schedule I. Or consider a second example: Suppose Congress passed the STATES Act, but did not re- (or de-) schedule marijuana. Following this change, scientists at the University of California would have a much easier time conducting research on the health effects of marijuana, but similarly situated scientists at the University of Texas would not. That’s because Texas continues to ban the possession, manufacture, and distribution of marijuana, so researchers in that state would still be committing state and federal crimes \u2013 and likely jeopardizing federal grant funds — if they handled the drug, notwithstanding passage of the STATES Act. The same researchers in California, by contrast, would face no such threats because that state has repealed its state ban on the drug — and with it, the federal ban too (again, if the STATES Act is passed).<\/p>\n

Only re-scheduling or de-scheduling marijuana would eliminate such problems posed by the federal ban. (To be sure, passing legislation that de-<\/em>schedules marijuana \u2013 which is an option under the Second Resolved Clause of the resolution \u2013 would likely moot the need for the STATES Act. After all, if marijuana is no longer governed by the CSA, the states no longer need the option to turn off the CSA\u2019s prohibition. So if Congress passed legislation de-scheduling marijuana, it would not also need to pass the STATES Act.)<\/p>\n

The Third Resolved Clause\u00a0recognizes that even though there is promising evidence regarding marijuana medical potential (and mounting evidence that marijuana is less harmful than once believed), there is still a need for more research on the drug. Re- scheduling or even de-scheduling marijuana and \/ or adopting the STATES Act would allow\u00a0more research to be done, e.g., because these measures would reduce the obstacles researchers now face. But affirmative federal support for research (e.g., subsidies) — which is what I think the Third Resolved Clause calls for \u2013 would go a step further and help resolve many lingering questions regarding marijuana\u2019s health effects.<\/p>\n

4) Background on the Resolution<\/h4>\n

The resolution took a long time to prepare and to marshal through the necessary steps for approval at the ABA. The Task Force (noted above) was formed by the Criminal Justice Section of the ABA back in January of 2018. It was comprised pf myself and one other academic (Sam Kamin, who served as Chair), as well as a diverse group of\u00a0distinguished\u00a0lawyers and current \/ former government officials. The Task Force drafted an initial report and resolution, which was presented to the Criminal Justice Section\u2019s Council (the Section\u2019s governing body) in April 2019. The Council approved the resolution with some thoughtful revisions, which the Section then proposed to the ABA\u2019s House of Delegates \u2013 basically the whole organization\u2019s policymaking body. The House of Delegates just approved the resolution at its meeting in mid-August \u2013 notably, with very little opposition (as you can see in the video linked above). This means that the resolution has the endorsement of the ABA, the nation\u2019s (if not the world\u2019s) largest professional organization of lawyers. I am under no illusions that this will suddenly prompt Congress to act, but it has to help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am pleased to report that the American Bar Association (ABA) just adopted a resolution urging Congress to reform federal marijuana laws. The resolution declares: RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation to exempt from the Controlled Substances Act any production, distribution, possession, or 3 use of marijuana carried out in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6789,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[534,99,6,258,539,538,100,15,5,20,535,537,536],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-updates","tag-american-bar-association","tag-attorney","tag-cannabis","tag-congress","tag-criminal-justice-section","tag-house-of-delegates","tag-lawyer","tag-marihuana","tag-marijuana","tag-reform","tag-resolution","tag-resolution-104","tag-task-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6789"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/marijuanalaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}