According to more conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, federal marijuana laws may be antiquated and outdated.
The Justice used a 2005 ruling in Gonzales v. Raich, which determined that the federal government could enforce prohibition against marijuana possession, to say the law may be outdated.
Justice Clarence Thomas said that federal laws against the sale and cultivation of marijuana are inconsistent, making a national prohibition unnecessary.
“A prohibition on interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or proper to support the federal government’s piecemeal approach,” Thomas wrote in a statement.
The court decided not to hear a new case related to tax deductions claimed by a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary. This had prompted Thomas to issue a statement that more broadly addressed federal marijuana laws.
“Federal policies of the past 16 years have greatly undermined its reasoning,” Thomas added. “The federal government’s current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”
Thomas referred to several policies that conflict with the 2005 ruling including memorandums issued by the Department of Justice in 2009 and 2013 that indicated the government would not intrude on state marijuana legalization schemes or prosecute individuals for marijuana-activity if it complies with state law.
Congress has repeatedly prohibited the Justice Department from using federal money to interfere in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws these last few years.
“Given all these developments, one can certainly understand why an ordinary person might think that the Federal Government has retreated from its once-absolute ban on marijuana,” he wrote.
A taz code provision prohibits businesses that deal in marijuana and other controlled substances from deducting their business expenses.
“Under this rule, a business that is still in the red after it pays its workers and keeps the lights on might nonetheless owe substantial federal income tax,” Thomas wrote.
Thomas argues that all of these problems threaten the principles of federalism.
“If the Government is now content to allow States to act ‘as laboratories, then it might no longer have authority to intrude on ‘[t]he States’ core police powers . . . to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens,’” Thomas said.
