Ganja Law 101 Episode 5

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Some things I was unclear on after the deci­sion in Employ­ment Divi­sion v. Smith in 1990: (1) like most peo­ple, I thought the 1964 deci­sion by the Cal­i­for­nia Supreme Court in Peo­ple v. Woody cor­rect­ly applied the First Amend­ment to the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion to the reli­gious use of pey­ote; and (2) I thought my equal pro­tec­tion argu­ment failed because pey­ote is not cannabis.  Nei­ther of those assump­tions were cor­rect: (1) the fed­er­al exemp­tion for pey­ote is a reg­u­la­tion, not a fed­er­al statute or a fed­er­al court deci­sion; and (2) reli­gious use of pey­ote is reg­u­lat­ed while reli­gious use of cannabis is not.  It wasn’t impor­tant that I was mis­tak­en, because that has cleared up for me now that Iowa has begun reg­u­lat­ing cannabis.
1.  Com­mis­sion on Mar­i­hua­na (1972) [While reject­ing legal­i­sa­tion of the drug itself, the Com­mis­sion declared that an effec­tive dis­cour­age­ment pol­i­cy does not require mak­ing pri­vate pos­ses­sion of mar­i­hua­na a crime nor does it rec­om­mend putting its users in jail.]
2.  NORML v. Inger­soll, 497 F.2d 654, 661 (D.C. Cir. 1974) [21 U.S.C. § 811(d) pro­vides: If con­trol is required by Unit­ed States oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tion­al treaties, con­ven­tions, or pro­to­cols in effect on the date of this part, the Attor­ney Gen­er­al shall issue an order con­trol­ling such drug under the sched­ule he deems most appro­pri­ate to car­ry out such oblig­a­tions, with­out regard to the find­ings required by sub­sec­tion (a) of this sec­tion or sec­tion 202(b) of this title [21 U.S.C. 812(b)] and with­out regard to the pro­ce­dures pre­scribed by sub­sec­tions (a) and (b) of this sec­tion.  21 U.S.C. § 811(d).]
3.  Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494, 511 (Alas­ka 1975) [… pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na by adults at home for per­son­al use is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed …]
4.  Unit­ed State v. Ran­dall, 104 Wash. D.L. Rep. 2249 (Dec. 28, 1976) [The court con­sid­ers evi­dence on the alleged harm­ful effects of mar­i­jua­na togeth­er with fed­er­al court deci­sions regard­ing the right to pre­serve one’s health, and con­cludes that the defendant’s inter­est in retain­ing his sight out­weighs the government’s inter­est.]
5.  NORML v. DEA, 559 F.2d 735, 750, 752 (D.C. Cir. 1977) [… cannabis … and cannabis resin … are list­ed in Sched­ules I and IV of the treaty …] [If Sec­tion 201(d) is to have any mean­ing at all, it must be read to autho­rize place­ment of cannabis and cannabis resin in CSA Sched­ule II …]
6.  NORML v. DEA, No. 79–1660 (D.C. Cir., Octo­ber 16, 1980).
7.  Grin­spoon v. DEA, 828 F.2d 881, 886 (1st Cir. 1987) [… Con­gress did not intend “accept­ed med­ical use in treat­ment in the Unit­ed States” to require a find­ing of rec­og­nized med­ical use in every state …]
8.  In the mat­ter of Cannabis Resched­ul­ing, DEA Dock­et No. 86–22, pp. 58–59 (1988) [Mar­i­jua­na, in its nat­ur­al form, is one of the safest ther­a­peu­ti­cal­ly active sub­stances known to man.]
9.  Employ­ment Divi­sion v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990)
10.  Iowans for Med­ical Mar­i­jua­na (1990); Carl Olsen; George McMa­hon; Bar­bara Dou­glass