HF2589 Violates State Sovereignty

BEFORE THE IOWA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Peti­tion­er, Carl Olsen, objects to House File 2589 at page 8, §31 at lines 19–27 (passed by the Iowa House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on March 10, 2020, by a vote of 52–46, and by the Iowa Sen­ate on June 3, 2020, by a vote of 32–17), which instructs the Iowa Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health (the depart­ment) to obtain guar­an­tees from fed­er­al agen­cies not to with­hold fund­ing for local poli­cies which autho­rize the vio­la­tion of fed­er­al drug laws.

There is no for­mal process for request­ing guar­an­tees from fed­er­al agen­cies not to with­hold fund­ing for vio­la­tion of fed­er­al drug laws, because it does not make any sense.  Fed­er­al fund­ing has recent­ly been with­held for local poli­cies which autho­rize the vio­la­tion of fed­er­al immi­gra­tion laws, New York v. Unit­ed States DOJ, 951 F.3d 84 (2nd Cir. 2020), Feb­ru­ary 26, 2020.  Fed­er­al fund­ing has recent­ly been with­held for local poli­cies with autho­rize the med­ical use of cannabis.  Fed­er­al men­tal health grants can­celed because Maine has legal mar­i­jua­na, Sun Jour­nal, by Steve Collins, May 15, 2020.

Instead of imply­ing that Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E autho­rizes the vio­la­tion of fed­er­al drug laws, the depart­ment should rec­og­nize Iowa’s right to deter­mine the legit­i­mate use of con­trolled sub­stances in Iowa con­sis­tent with 21 U.S.C. §903.  See Gon­za­les v. Ore­gon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006).

To be con­sis­tent with 21 U.S.C. §903, the depart­ment should obtain a fed­er­al exemp­tion for Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E.  There is a for­mal process for obtain­ing a fed­er­al exemp­tion from fed­er­al drug laws, 21 C.F.R. §1307.03.  A fed­er­al exemp­tion would resolve the issue with all fed­er­al agen­cies, not just a select­ed few.

There is prece­dent for inter­pret­ing state leg­is­la­tion in this man­ner, because Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E.14 requires the depart­ment to license two out-of-state med­ical cannabid­i­ol dis­pen­saries from a bor­der­ing state.  Sim­i­lar­ly, Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E.15 allows med­ical cannabid­i­ol patients to reg­is­ter in Min­neso­ta.  The depart­ment has nev­er imple­ment­ed §14 and §15 because attor­neys for the depart­ment advised the depart­ment not to imple­ment those sec­tions.

The same prin­ci­ple of statu­to­ry inter­pre­ta­tion by the depart­ment applies here.  The depart­ment should not tell the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment that Iowa is autho­riz­ing fed­er­al crimes, which would be incon­sis­tent with 21 U.S.C. §903.  The depart­ment should rec­on­cile state and fed­er­al law by obtain­ing an exemp­tion from fed­er­al drug laws, which would be con­sis­tent with 21 U.S.C. §903.  It would be com­plete­ly with­in rea­son to say Iowa leg­is­la­tors intend­ed to cre­ate con­sis­ten­cy rather than incon­sis­ten­cy with fed­er­al drug laws and sim­ply came up with poor lan­guage that inad­e­quate­ly express­es this intent.  The intent, rather than the let­ter, should gov­ern here.

Why cre­ate ten­sion (“pos­i­tive con­flict”) between state and fed­er­al drug laws when it isn’t nec­es­sary or even desir­able?

FACTS

There is an exist­ing fed­er­al exemp­tion for pey­ote at 21 C.F.R. §1307.31.  Pey­ote is a fed­er­al sched­ule 1 con­trolled sub­stance.  The exemp­tion pro­vides com­plete pro­tec­tion by all fed­er­al agen­cies, not just a select­ed few.

Cannabis is also a fed­er­al sched­ule 1 con­trolled sub­stance, so there is prece­dent for the exemp­tion of fed­er­al sched­ule 1 con­trolled sub­stances.

This mat­ter was pre­sent­ed to the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board on August 2, 2019.  The Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board approved obtain­ing an exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from fed­er­al drug laws by roll call vote.  The vote was unan­i­mous.  The Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board pre­sent­ed this rec­om­men­da­tion to the leg­is­la­ture on Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, in its annu­al report to the leg­is­la­ture, on page 7 (“seek­ing exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from fed­er­al drug laws”).

ARGUMENT

If not for the process of obtain­ing an exemp­tion from fed­er­al drug laws in 21 C.F.R. §1307.03, the fed­er­al sched­ule 1 clas­si­fi­ca­tion of cannabis may not even be con­sti­tu­tion­al.  Fed­er­al sched­ule 1 con­trolled sub­stances must have no accept­ed med­ical use in treat­ment in the Unit­ed States, 21 U.S.C. §812(b).  In 1987 the fed­er­al courts deter­mined that accept­ed med­ical use in treat­ment in the Unit­ed States does not require accept­ed med­ical use in every state and does not require approval from the FDA (Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion).  See Grin­spoon v. DEA, 828 F.2d 881 (1st Cir. 1987).

The judi­cial doc­trine of con­sti­tu­tion­al avoid­ance avoids the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of leav­ing cannabis in sched­ule 1 because exemp­tion removes the con­flict between state and fed­er­al drug laws.  See Ash­wan­der v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 345–48 (Bran­deis, J., con­cur­ring) (1936).  See, 21 C.F.R. §1307.31.  Exemp­tion allows fed­er­al sched­ule 1 to exist with­out cre­at­ing any pos­i­tive con­flict with state and fed­er­al drug laws and sched­ule 1 remains con­sti­tu­tion­al.  Not every state has accept­ed the med­ical use of cannabis.  Fed­er­al sched­ule 1 remains valid for any use of cannabis that is not autho­rized by state law.

State law is what deter­mines the “legit­i­mate med­ical pur­pose” of a fed­er­al­ly con­trolled sub­stance because Con­gress has not defined the phrase.  See, Gon­za­les v. Ore­gon, 546 U.S. 243, 258 (2006).  The DEA (Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion) has had dif­fi­cul­ty defin­ing the term “accept­ed med­ical use,” because that term is not defined any­where in the fed­er­al drug laws.  See 57 Fed. Reg. 10,499 (Mar. 26, 1992) (“Final Order”), at 10,508; Alliance for Cannabis Ther­a­peu­tics v. DEA, 15 F.3d 1131, 1134 (1994); Grin­spoon v. DEA, 828 F.2d 881 (1st Cir. 1987).  Two years lat­er, in 1996, states began accept­ing the med­ical use of cannabis, some­thing the DEA could not have con­tem­plat­ed when it for­mu­lat­ed it’s five-part test.  The DEA’s five-part test would seem to nul­li­fy these state laws with­out a clear del­e­ga­tion from Con­gress of that kind of con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty over the states if not for the exemp­tion pro­vi­sions of 21 C.F.R. §1307.03.  See, Gon­za­les v. Ore­gon, 546 U.S. 243, 258 (2006) (the admin­is­tra­tor, “is not autho­rized to make a rule declar­ing ille­git­i­mate a med­ical stan­dard for care and treat­ment of patients that is specif­i­cal­ly autho­rized under state law”).

The con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions are avoid­ed by the exemp­tion.

CONCLUSION

There is no good rea­son to inten­tion­al­ly cre­ate pos­i­tive con­flict with fed­er­al drug law by request­ing guar­an­tees from fed­er­al agen­cies not to with­hold fund­ing for vio­la­tion of fed­er­al drug laws.  In real­i­ty, no such vio­la­tion exists.  Exemp­tion is avail­able and avoids any pos­i­tive con­flict with fed­er­al drug laws.

The depart­ment should do what makes sense and avoid ten­sion between state and fed­er­al drug laws.

EXHIBITS

Feb­ru­ary 1, 2019

Exhib­it #1 – Petitioner’s Com­ments to the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board con­tained in the board’s min­utes from Feb­ru­ary 1, 2019, page 2, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether all activ­i­ty autho­rized by Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E vio­lates fed­er­al drug laws.

June 14, 2019

Exhib­it #2 – Petitioner’s Peti­tion to the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board ask­ing the board to rec­om­mend an exemp­tion for Iowa’s Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol pro­gram from fed­er­al drug laws.

July 21, 2019

Exhib­it #3 – Petitioner’s Sup­ple­men­tal Argu­ment to the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board ask­ing the board to rec­om­mend an exemp­tion for Iowa’s Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol pro­gram from fed­er­al drug laws.

August 2, 2019

Exhib­it #4 – Unan­i­mous roll call vote of the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board in favor of rec­om­mend­ing an exemp­tion for Iowa’s Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol pro­gram from fed­er­al drug laws con­tained board’s min­utes from August 2, 2019, pages 6–7.

Jan­u­ary 1, 2020

Exhib­it #5 – Annu­al Report of the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board rec­om­mend­ing a fed­er­al exemp­tion from fed­er­al drug laws, page 7.

Feb­ru­ary 26, 2020

Exhib­it #6 – New York v. Unit­ed States DOJ, 951 F.3d 84 (2nd Cir. 2020).  Fed­er­al fund­ing with­held for vio­la­tion of fed­er­al immi­gra­tion laws.

May 15, 2020

Exhib­it #7 – Fed­er­al men­tal health grants can­celed because Maine has legal mar­i­jua­na, Sun Jour­nal, by Steve Collins.

Thank you!

Signed this 7th day of June, 2020.

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