Chapter 124E is Poorly Written

Recent­ly, Cap­tain Mar­ti Reil­ly of the Sioux City Police Depart­ment, a sea­soned-law offi­cer with years of expe­ri­ence inves­ti­gat­ing drug crimes said:

“Mar­i­jua­na is an inter­est­ing drug, in the fact that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment says it’s ille­gal.  Being in law enforce­ment for more than 30 years.  They always said state laws can be more restric­tive, but it can’t be less.  So, each state legal­iz­ing it is break­ing fed­er­al law.”

The Poten­tial Impact of Expand­ed Med­ical Mar­i­jua­na, March 27, 2019, KWIT FM 90.3 / KOJI FM 90.7, Sioux­land Pub­lic Media, West­ern Iowa Tech Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, 4647 Stone Avenue, Sioux City, IA 51106.

Com­pare this to what House Speak­er Lin­da Upmey­er said in Sep­tem­ber of 2017 after Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E had been enact­ed:

“House Speak­er Lin­da Upmey­er, R‑Clear Lake, not­ed in a state­ment that no mat­ter what the Leg­is­la­ture had decid­ed, the state still would have been in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law.”

AG tells agency to halt part of Iowa’s med­ical mar­i­jua­na law, Sep­tem­ber 10, 2017, Des Moines Reg­is­ter, Des Moines, Iowa.

And com­pare it to what State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Forbes said in Decem­ber of 2017 after Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E had been enact­ed:

“I mean, we are vio­lat­ing fed­er­al law with a cannabis bill here in the state of Iowa.”

Rep. John Forbes (D — Urban­dale) and Gerd Clabaugh, Decem­ber 22, 2017, Iowa Pub­lic Radio, John­ston, Iowa.

Intro­duc­ing leg­is­la­tion at 3 a.m. on the last day of the ses­sion, pass­ing it out of the House at 5 a.m. on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, and out of the sen­ate at 6 a.m. that morn­ing, is not how care­ful, thought­ful leg­is­la­tion should be craft­ed.

WARNING! DANGER!

Until 3 a.m. on Sat­ur­day, April 22, 2017, House File 524 was just a bill about pre­scrip­tion mon­i­tor­ing.  Around 3:00 a.m. on Sat­ur­day morn­ing H‑1461 was filed, chang­ing the bill into a med­ical cannabid­i­ol pro­gram.  At around 5:00 a.m. the amend­ment was passed in the House, and at around 6:00 a.m. on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, the amend­ed bill passed in the Sen­ate.

What’s Miss­ing?

House File 732 needs an amend­ment to Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E that say:

“This chap­ter does not vio­late any fed­er­al law.”

What else?

“This chap­ter does not autho­rize the vio­la­tion of any fed­er­al law.”

Please add the same amend­ment that was added to SF 501.

Please amend HF 732.

House File 732
1	Amend File 732 as fol­lows:
2	1.  Page 2, after line 18 by insert­ing:
3	<Sec. ___.  NEW SECTION.  124E.20  Fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions not
4	applic­a­ble.
5	Notwith­stand­ing any fed­er­al reg­u­la­tion to the con­trary, the
6	use of med­ical cannabid­i­ol pur­suant to this chap­ter is not
7	sub­ject to fed­er­al reg­u­la­tion.>
8	2.  By renum­ber­ing as nec­es­sary.

When Con­gress cre­at­ed the fed­er­al Con­trolled Sub­stances Act in 1970, it gave a fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tive agency the author­i­ty to remove mar­i­jua­na from the act with­out any fur­ther action by Con­gress, 21 U.S.C. 811(a).  Con­gress also gave the admin­is­tra­tive agency the author­i­ty to make excep­tions to the act, which the agency has done for anoth­er fed­er­al Sched­ule 1 con­trolled sub­stance, pey­ote, 21 C.F.R. 1307.31.

What Should Iowa Do?

Let the fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tive agency know we are mak­ing an excep­tion to the Con­trolled Sub­stance Act for the med­ical use of mar­i­jua­na!