A coalition of marijuana businesses, represented by a powerful law firm, has filed an anticipated lawsuit against the U.S. Attorney General. The suit seeks to prevent the federal government from enforcing the cannabis prohibition in state-legal activities.
Treevit CEO Gyasi Sellers, Verano Holdings Corp., and the Massachusetts-based cannabis companies Canna Provisions, and Wiseacre Farm filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
According to a press release, Ascend Wellness Holdings (formerly TerrAscend), Green Thumb Industries (formerly Eminence Capital), Poseidon Investment Management, Eminence Capital, and Poseidon Investment Management were “foundational sponsors” of the lawsuit.
Plaintiffs are represented by the law firms Boies Schiller Flexner, Lesser Newman Aleo & Nasser LLP and Boies Schiller Flexner. David Boies is the chairman of the former law firm. He has had a number of clients in the past, including the Justice Department, Al Gore, the plaintiffs of a lawsuit that invalidated California’s same-sex marriage ban, and others.
Boies , in a Thursday press release, said that federal criminalization in states where marijuana is legal, which is regulated and safe, unfairly burdens legitimate operations. It also expands production and sales of unregulated and unsafe marijuana, which is likely to spread to other states. Federal criminalization denies small legal marijuana businesses access to SBA loan, investors, employee benefits, and normal banking regulation (which, among other things forces them to use cash transactions, with all the dangers that result). It also burdens them with discriminatory tax.
“Americans think that cannabis should be available and legal, subject to reasonable regulations by the states.” He said that 38 states had legalized cannabis in some form. The federal government does not have the authority to ban intrastate cannabis trade. The Supreme Court has ruled that outdated precedents dating back decades no longer apply.
The lawsuit claims that plaintiffs have suffered “numerous harms” “caused by federal government’s unconstitutional prohibition on cultivating or manufacturing marijuana, distributing it, or even possessing it within state borders.”
Cannabis executives announced their plans to challenge the constitutionality in enforcing the criminalization of intrastate cannabis activity under the Controlled Substances Act last year.
This story will be updated as it develops.
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