ACLU Asks Federal Judge To Throw Out Arizona Governor’s Medical Marijuana Lawsuit

The American Civil Liberties Union today asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit filed in May by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer that seeks to have her state’s medical marijuana law struck down.

In a motion filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the ACLU charges that the lawsuit should be dismissed because, among other reasons, there has been no threat that state employees charged with carrying out the state’s law would be prosecuted by federal authorities.

“On the pretext of protecting her state employees, Gov. Brewer is simply seeking to thwart the will of Arizona’s voters and unconscionably block sick people from accessing their vital medicine,” said Scott Michelman, staff attorney with the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project. “People should have the freedom to choose the medicine their doctors believe will be most effective for them.”

In May, Brewer filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke and potential dispensary applicants seeking a ruling from a federal court that the law is preempted by federal law and should be struck down. The ACLU, along with the Phoenix law firm Gammage & Burnham, represents the Arizona Medical Marijuana Association (AzMMA), a non-profit, membership-based professional association that seeks to advance the interests of Arizona’s medical marijuana profession and the patients it serves, and that is a named defendant in Brewer’s lawsuit.

Brewer’s lawsuit claims that Arizona officials fear federal prosecution for implementing the law, even though Burke said in the days leading up to Brewer filing the lawsuit that the federal government has “no intention of targeting or going after people who are implementing or who are in compliance with state law.”

Brewer’s lawsuit also claims that Arizona’s medical marijuana law is in conflict with the federal Controlled Substances Act. But three appellate court decisions in California have previously rejected claims that California’s medical marijuana law is preempted by federal law. And the Oregon Supreme Court in May backed away from its previous ruling that a part of Oregon’s medical marijuana law is preempted by federal law.

A majority of Arizona voters in 2010 passed Proposition 203, which allows terminally and seriously ill patients in Arizona who find relief from marijuana to use it with a doctor’s recommendation. The law allows marijuana to be distributed by tightly regulated clinics to patients with state-issued registry cards and creates penalties for false statements and fraudulent cards.

“Gov. Brewer’s efforts to derail Prop 203 are bad for patients and bad for public safety,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona. “This law received broad public support because it was thoughtfully written to give patients access to vital medicine, while at the same time creating a well-regulated system of distribution. By preventing state health officials from doing their jobs, Brewer is actually doing more harm than good and creating chaos in a system sanctioned by Arizona voters.”

Along with Michelman, attorneys on the case are Daniel J. Pochoda of the ACLU of Arizona, Lisa T. Hauser and Cameron C. Artigue of Gammage & Burnham, Flagstaff, Ariz. attorney Thomas W. Deene, who represents the Arizona Association of Dispensary Professionals, Inc. and attorneys from the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Rose Law Group PC, who represent the remainder of the named non-federal defendants in Brewer’s lawsuit.

A copy of today’s motion is available online at: download

Arizona v. U.S. – Motion to Dismiss

Arizona AG Worked With Anti-Marijuana Leader On Lawsuit

Photo: James King/Phoenix New Times

Whack-job Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne started working on a nefarious plan to stop medical marijuana almost as soon as voters had approved it last November.

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Elected state officials busily working to defeat the will of their state’s own voters — it’s an unseemly spectacle, and it’s unfolding as we speak in Arizona. Making the entire scene even more ugly is the fact that seriously ill patients are needless suffering as a result.

Within weeks of Arizona voters approving medical marijuana in their state, the top law enforcement official in the state was devising ways to stymie the will of the people. Whack-job Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne discussed a plan to launch legal action agains the state’s medical marijuana law during a January meeting with the law’s biggest opponent, it has been revealed.

Carolyn Short, who led last year’s unsuccessful campaign to stop Proposition 203, which legalized medical marijuana in Arizona, refers to the meeting in a February 16 letter [PDF] to state Department of Health Services Director Will Humble, reports Ray Stern at Phoenix New Times:

On January 10, 2011, [former Arizona U.S. Attorney] Paul Charlton and I met with Attorney General Horne to discuss our conclusion that implementation of Prop 203 would subject you and other ADHS employees to federal prosecution for violating the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”).

AG Horne suggested that he could file a declaratory judgment action, asking a court to determine whether the implementation of Arizona’s law would subject you and other ADHS employees to the risk of federal prosecution under the CSA.

Horne and Governor Jan Brewer put that idea into action last month, filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court. The suit asks the court to make a “declaratory judgment” on the legality of Arizona’s new law.

State officials claimed at the time that a letter to Humble by U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke prompted them to file the lawsuit. Though both Horne and Brewer openly opposed Prop 203 before voters approved it, Horne claimed to reporters last month that he and the Governor were taking a “neutral” (yeah, right) stance on the new law.

“Short’s letter lays rest to the notion of neutrality,” Stern reports in the New Times. “And it makes Burke’s May 2 letter, which merely reiterated that marijuana was against federal law, (okay, there was some new stuff about the potential risk to property owners, landlords and financiers), appear to be little more than political cover for Horne and Brewer to launch a pre-planned attack.”

Besides mentioning Horne’s idea for a federal lawsuit, Short’s letter lays the groundwork for the theory that state employees are at risk of being federally prosecuted for simply carrying out the wishes of Arizona’s voters.

Horne and Brewer claimed last month that their lawsuit — in which they are plaintiffs attempting to defeat the will of the voters — that they’re “concerned” about state employees being prosecuted.

Yet, according to New Times, U.S. Attorney Burke never threatened state employees in his own letter, and the idea that the Obama Administration would arrest state officials in Arizona (or in Washington, where Governor Christine Gregoire used an almost identical excuse to gut a law which would have legalized dispensaries there) is simply far-fetched — as in, it has never happened, anywhere, ever.

“Brewer and Horne could have let Burke and the DEA make the first move against Arizona voters, then defended the medical marijuana law as vigorously as they’re defending the immigration laws,” Stern writes. “Instead, the governor and AG appear to be working in concert with Proposition 203′s opponents to defeat the law by any means necessary.”