In the most aggressive criminal motion I have ever seen in my life, (and I’ve challenged the constitutionality of the move over law in traffic courts), a criminal defendant in California is challenging the constitutionality of the scheduling of marijuana as a schedule I narcotic.
A hearing was held on the motion, which is embedded below in all of its 188-page glory, to determine whether the scheduling of marijuana as the most restrictive scheduling class for any drug in this country is rationally related to a legitimate state interest, the lowest standard for determining constitutional overreach of a government regulation.
If the motion prevails, and the scheduling classification of marijuana is deemed unconstitutional, it could be a swift ride to the United States Supreme Court to determine if a long-standing principle that marijuana is one of the most dangerous drugs in the country is a policy that will be abolished. For those of us that support the efforts of NORML to create responsible marijuana regulations that respect the individual citizens’ liberty rights to behave in a reasonable manner, and to those of us that are more fearful of the gangs that run the black market business of illegal narcotics distribution than we are of fans of the Grateful Dead, this is a huge step in the right direction to ending a longstanding irrational overreach of the Federal government.
Here’s hoping that all fair’s well.
Follow me at @DavidTDorer, listen to the David Dorer Show live every Friday (Available on iTunes and on Stitcher). Also, make sure to check out Talking Law with David Dorer every Wednesday. (Available on iTunes and on Stitcher).
null