Supplement to IDPH Petition — November 2019

https://iowamedicalmarijuana.org/cases/olsen-dea-2019.html

Sup­ple­ment to Peti­tion for Fed­er­al Exemp­tion
Mon­day, Octo­ber 14, 2019

BEFORE THE IOWA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Peti­tion by Carl Olsen for agency action relat­ed to Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E

PETITION FOR AGENCY ACTION ADDITIONAL EXHIBITS

ADDITIONAL ARGUMENT

Attached is a let­ter from Iowa Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tom Miller ask­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to “allow each state and ter­ri­to­ry to deter­mine, for itself, the best approach to mar­i­jua­na legal­iza­tion with­in its bor­ders,” cit­ing S. 1028 in the Sen­ate and H.R. 2093 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as exam­ples.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has the abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize exemp­tions with­out the need for fur­ther fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion.  See 21 C.F.R. §1307.03 and 21 C.F.R. §1307.31.

The U.S. Supreme Court has con­sis­tent­ly rec­og­nized the author­i­ty of the state to deter­mine the legit­i­mate use of con­trolled sub­stances, whether it be the author­i­ty of a state to deny a reli­gious exemp­tion, such as the one in 21 C.F.R. §1307.31, or whether it be the author­i­ty of a state to autho­rize the use of fed­er­al­ly con­trolled sub­stances to assist sui­cide.

Because respon­dents’ inges­tion of pey­ote was pro­hib­it­ed under Ore­gon law, and because that pro­hi­bi­tion is con­sti­tu­tion­al, Ore­gon may, con­sis­tent with the Free Exer­cise Clause, deny respon­dents unem­ploy­ment com­pen­sa­tion when their dis­missal results from use of the drug.

Employ­ment Divi­sion v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 890 (1990)

If a fed­er­al offi­cial is faced with the alter­na­tives of choos­ing a loca­tion or direct­ing the States to do it, the offi­cial may well pre­fer the lat­ter, as a means of shift­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for the even­tu­al deci­sion.  If a state offi­cial is faced with the same set of alter­na­tives – choos­ing a loca­tion or hav­ing Con­gress direct the choice of a loca­tion – the state offi­cial may also pre­fer the lat­ter, as it may per­mit the avoid­ance of per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty.  The inter­ests of pub­lic offi­cials thus may not coin­cide with the Constitution’s inter­gov­ern­men­tal allo­ca­tion of author­i­ty.  Where state offi­cials pur­port to sub­mit to the direc­tion of Con­gress in this man­ner, fed­er­al­ism is hard­ly being advanced.

New York v. Unit­ed States, 505 U.S. 144, 182–3 (1992)

The Gov­ern­ment, in the end, main­tains that the pre­scrip­tion require­ment del­e­gates to a sin­gle exec­u­tive offi­cer the pow­er to effect a rad­i­cal shift of author­i­ty from the States to the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to define gen­er­al stan­dards of med­ical prac­tice in every local­i­ty.  The text and struc­ture of the CSA show that Con­gress did not have this far-reach­ing intent to alter the fed­er­al-state bal­ance and the con­gres­sion­al role in main­tain­ing it.

Gon­za­les v. Ore­gon, 546 U.S. 243, 275 (2006)

Iowa Attor­ney Gen­er­al Miller has already deter­mined that the sole­ly intrastate parts of Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E are con­sis­tent with fed­er­al law.  See the attach­ment to Exhib­it #2, “AG tells agency to halt part of Iowa’s med­ical mar­i­jua­na law,” Des Moines Reg­is­ter, Sep­tem­ber 10, 2017.

In 1981, Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Theodore Olson stat­ed that the pey­ote exemp­tion proves fed­er­al drug law vests the author­i­ty in the fed­er­al exec­u­tive branch to rec­og­nize exemp­tions.  See Exhib­it #1 at page 408:

The leg­isla­tive his­to­ry sup­ports your agency’s exist­ing exemp­tion for the use of pey­ote in the reli­gious cer­e­monies of the NAC.  In the case of the 1965 Amend­ments, the House pro­posed to exempt the bona fide reli­gious use of pey­ote; the Sen­ate dropped the exemp­tion, not because it opposed the reli­gious use of pey­ote but because it believed that spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to pey­ote would unnec­es­sar­i­ly inter­fere with the dis­cre­tion which Con­gress intend­ed to vest in the admin­is­tra­tive agency to deter­mine which sub­stances were to be brought under con­trol of the bill.

Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Theodore Olson also stat­ed that the pey­ote exemp­tion does not have a reli­gious pur­pose.  See Exhib­it #1 at page 418 (“The exemp­tion should not be viewed as hav­ing a reli­gious pur­pose”).

TIMELINE AND DESCRIPTION OF EXHIBITS IN THE APPENDIX

Sep­tem­ber 23, 2019

Exhib­it #13 – Iowa Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tom Miller’s let­ter to the lead­er­ship of the U.S. House and U.S. Sen­ate lead­er­ship request­ing new fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion that rec­og­nizes state author­i­ty to deter­mine legit­i­mate use of cannabis.

Octo­ber 7, 2019

Exhib­it #14 – Min­utes from the August 2, 2019, meet­ing of the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board and Petitioner’s Pre­sen­ta­tion request­ing that the Iowa Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health deter­mine if the activ­i­ty autho­rized by Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E can be rec­on­ciled with cur­rent fed­er­al law with­out the need for fur­ther fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion.

Thank you

Signed this 14th day of Octo­ber, 2019.

Carl Olsen
130 E Auro­ra Ave
Des Moines, IA 50313–3654
515–343-9933
carl@carl-olsen.com

cc:

Lucas Nel­son, Med­Pharm, Iowa
Sen­a­tor Rich Tay­lor
Sen­a­tor Brad Zaun
Sen­a­tor Jack Whitver
Sen­a­tor Charles Schnei­der
Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pat Grass­ley
Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jarad Klein