Good morning your honor.
Good morning counsel.
The State has not met its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest in prohibiting the Petitioner’s possession of cannabis for religious use.
The State has the burden under the Iowa Religious Freedom Restoration Act to show the Petitioner’s possession of cannabis for religious use is a threat to public health and safety sufficient to justify depriving the Petitioner’s First Amendment religious freedom.
The State complains the Petitioner has been peacefully protesting for the past 40 years instead of being arrested again, but that only proves the Petitioner is not a threat to public health and safety.
The State’s Resistance ignores a 15-year chunk of time between 2009 and 2024 where it has enacted a federal racketeering scheme to provide the Petitioner’s sacrament to suffering Iowans without a prescription. The State’s program is contrary to Schedule 1 of the Iowa Uniform Controlled Substances Act and Schedule 1 of the Federal Controlled Substances Act.
There is no doubt the State has the authority to enact such a program, but running it as a federal racketeering scheme endangers both the participants as well as the general public that has to tolerate the illegal activity. The Federal CSA provides authority for a waiver like the one for religious use of peyote, but the State has not applied for a waiver. The compassionate use of cannabis without a prescription should easily qualify for a federal waiver.
The Federal Controlled Substances Act allows the Attorney General to waive registration requirements. 21 U.S.C. § 822(d) (consistent with the public health and safety). The waiver for peyote is found in 21 C.F.R. § 1307.31. The State has not applied for and does not have a federal waiver for compassionate use of cannabis.
Suffering Iowans are faced with the choice of violating federal drug law to participate in this racketeering scheme or go without treatment. The Petitioner has offered to help the State get a waiver. The board that regulates the program has listened to the Petitioner, adopted the Petitioner’s suggestion, and fully agrees the State needs to apply for a federal waiver. See the board’s annual reports for the past five years.
Nothing else has changed over the past 40 years, and State’s Resistance simply ignores this half-baked program like it never existed.
The existence of the State’s cannabis program is the reason the Petitioner filed this action. The State’s cannabis program is a dramatic reversal of the compelling interest the State claimed to have had in the Petitioner’s previous cases.
I reserve the rest of my time your honor.
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