Cannabis Petition for Redress — 2025

Peti­tion for Redress: Iowa Con­sti­tu­tion, Arti­cle 1, Sec­tion 20

Sec. 20.  Right of assem­blage — peti­tion.
The peo­ple have the right freely to assem­ble togeth­er to coun­sel for the com­mon good; to make known their opin­ions to their rep­re­sen­ta­tives and to peti­tion for a redress of griev­ances.

I am a cit­i­zen with an inter­est in respect for law and order.

The Iowa Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Act, Iowa Code Chap­ter 124E, is incon­sis­tent with the Fed­er­al Con­trolled Sub­stances Act (CSA), 21 U.S.C. §§ 812, 844, and 848, and the Fed­er­al Inter­nal Rev­enue Code: 26 U.S.C. § 280E.

§280E.  Expen­di­tures in con­nec­tion with the ille­gal sale of drugs
No deduc­tion or cred­it shall be allowed for any amount paid or incurred dur­ing the tax­able year in car­ry­ing on any trade or busi­ness if such trade or busi­ness (or the activ­i­ties which com­prise such trade or busi­ness) con­sists of traf­fick­ing in con­trolled sub­stances (with­in the mean­ing of sched­ule I and II of the Con­trolled Sub­stances Act) which is pro­hib­it­ed by Fed­er­al law or the law of any State in which such trade or busi­ness is con­duct­ed.

This incon­sis­ten­cy was known to leg­is­la­tors when the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Act was passed in 2017.  AG tells agency to halt part of Iowa’s med­ical mar­i­jua­na law, Des Moines Reg­is­ter, Des Moines, Iowa, Sep­tem­ber 10, 2017.

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.

The Fed­er­al CSA pro­vides a rem­e­dy for this incon­sis­ten­cy, 21 U.S.C. § 822(d).

(d)  Waiv­er
The Attor­ney Gen­er­al may, by reg­u­la­tion, waive the require­ment for reg­is­tra­tion of cer­tain man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, or dis­pensers if he finds it con­sis­tent with the pub­lic health and safe­ty.

The state must not cre­ate a pos­i­tive con­flict between state and fed­er­al drug law, where none exists, by inten­tion­al­ly refus­ing to request a waiv­er from the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed States.  21 U.S.C. § 903.

§903.  Appli­ca­tion of State law
No pro­vi­sion of this sub­chap­ter shall be con­strued as indi­cat­ing an intent on the part of the Con­gress to occu­py the field in which that pro­vi­sion oper­ates, includ­ing crim­i­nal penal­ties, to the exclu­sion of any State law on the same sub­ject mat­ter which would oth­er­wise be with­in the author­i­ty of the State, unless there is a pos­i­tive con­flict between that pro­vi­sion of this sub­chap­ter and that State law so that the two can­not con­sis­tent­ly stand togeth­er.

The exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive branch­es can­not law­ful­ly ignore this incon­sis­ten­cy between state and fed­er­al drug law.  A rem­e­dy exists and the peo­ple have a right to the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion that fed­er­al­ism pro­vides.  U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion, Amend­ment 14, Sec­tion 1.

Sec­tion 1
All per­sons born or nat­u­ral­ized in the Unit­ed States, and sub­ject to the juris­dic­tion there­of, are cit­i­zens of the Unit­ed States and of the State where­in they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priv­i­leges or immu­ni­ties of cit­i­zens of the Unit­ed States; nor shall any State deprive any per­son of life, lib­er­ty, or prop­er­ty, with­out due process of law; nor deny to any per­son with­in its juris­dic­tion the equal pro­tec­tion of the laws.

Bond v. Unit­ed States, 564 U.S. 211, 220 (2011) (“The indi­vid­ual, in a prop­er case, can assert injury from gov­ern­men­tal action tak­en in excess of the author­i­ty that fed­er­al­ism defines.  Her rights in this regard do not belong to a State”).  Bond, 564 U.S. at 221 (“fed­er­al­ism secures to cit­i­zens the lib­er­ties that derive from the dif­fu­sion of sov­er­eign pow­er”).  Bond, 564 U.S. at 223 (“If the con­sti­tu­tion­al struc­ture of our Gov­ern­ment that pro­tects indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty is com­pro­mised, indi­vid­u­als who suf­fer oth­er­wise jus­ti­cia­ble injury may object”).

42 U.S.C. § 1983.

§1983.  Civ­il action for depri­va­tion of rights
Every per­son who, under col­or of any statute, ordi­nance, reg­u­la­tion, cus­tom, or usage, of any State or Ter­ri­to­ry or the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, sub­jects, or caus­es to be sub­ject­ed, any cit­i­zen of the Unit­ed States or oth­er per­son with­in the juris­dic­tion there­of to the depri­va­tion of any rights, priv­i­leges, or immu­ni­ties secured by the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws, shall be liable to the par­ty injured in an action at law, suit in equi­ty, or oth­er prop­er pro­ceed­ing for redress, except that in any action brought against a judi­cial offi­cer for an act or omis­sion tak­en in such officer’s judi­cial capac­i­ty, injunc­tive relief shall not be grant­ed unless a declara­to­ry decree was vio­lat­ed or declara­to­ry relief was unavail­able.  For the pur­pos­es of this sec­tion, any Act of Con­gress applic­a­ble exclu­sive­ly to the Dis­trict of Colum­bia shall be con­sid­ered to be a statute of the Dis­trict of Colum­bia.

Forc­ing patients to choose between vio­lat­ing fed­er­al drug law or going with­out treat­ment is a vio­la­tion of fun­da­men­tal rights and expos­es the pub­lic to dan­ger with­out just cause.  Safe Streets Alliance v. Hick­en­loop­er, 859 F.3d 865, 884 (10th Cir. 2017) (“Mar­i­jua­na is a con­trolled sub­stance under the CSA.  21 U.S.C. § 802(16).  So the man­u­fac­ture, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and sale of that sub­stance is, by def­i­n­i­tion, rack­e­teer­ing activ­i­ty under RICO.  18 U.S.C. § 1961(1)(A), (D)”).

The board that reg­u­lates the Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Act has been ask­ing the leg­is­la­ture to fix this incon­sis­ten­cy for the past 5 years, begin­ning in 2019.  See rec­om­men­da­tion 8 in most recent 2024 Annu­al Report, request­ing a legal task force to address this incon­sis­ten­cy.

8.  Seek a Fed­er­al Exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram
The Board rec­om­mends that a task force of legal experts be autho­rized, sim­i­lar to the cur­rent board of med­ical experts, to assist the depart­ment in nav­i­gat­ing the legal issues involved with request­ing an exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from nec­es­sary Fed­er­al agen­cies.  This is relat­ed to a rec­om­men­da­tion in the Board’s 2019 Annu­al Report and the pas­sage of HF2589 in June 2020.

Will you please enact this into law this year?

Thank you!