A leading libertarian think tank is imploring the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case challenging the constitutionality of federal marijuana prohibition, arguing that the imposition of that policy on states that have enacted laws to regulate cannabis undermines a “foundational feature of our constitutional structure.”
The Cato Institute filed an amicus brief with the court on Tuesday supporting the Massachusetts-based marijuana companies that are seeking to resolve the issue and get the court to reach a ruling that protects intrastate cannabis activity from federal intervention.
The Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which currently lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug, “exemplifies how the federal government has all too often displaced the states as this country’s primary policymakers, aided in that effort by this Court’s modern Commerce Clause precedents,” the institute said.
“Before 1970, states regulated and then criminalized marijuana use as an exercise of their police power,” it said. “But that year, Congress enacted the CSA to ban all marijuana commerce—interstate and intrastate alike.”
The amicus brief was submitted to the court on the same day that justices scheduled a closed-door meeting for next month to discuss the case, Canna Provisions v. Bondi.
“The time has come to correct
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