Supreme Court Asked To Settle Differing Interpretations Of Federal Medical Marijuana Protections Amid Lower Court Discrepancy

In a case that could help clarify the boundaries of a federal law that protects state-legal medical marijuana activity from prosecution by the federal government, a Maine man is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a dispute in which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated and subsequently charged him under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

In a petition to the high court filed last week, Lucas Sirois asserts that the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, which has been enacted into federal law via spending bills since late 2014, should prevent DOJ from pursuing its case against him. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit previously ruled against Sirois, but his lawyers assert that was in error.

Sirois was charged in 2021 with “a laundry list of offenses” stemming from his business as a licensed medical marijuana provider, his petition says. Since his arrest, he’s protested that his prosecution is in violation of the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, an appropriations rider that prevents DOJ from spending money “to prevent [states with legal medical marijuana] from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

In the Supreme Court petition, Sirois argues that “the government’s actions in this case violate Rohrabacher-Farr resulting in DOJ spending funds not appropriated by Congress. Therefore, DOJ’s actions were invalid and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit must be reversed.”

While it’s up to Supreme Court justices whether to take the case, the petition notes that there’s currently a split between First Circuit and Ninth Circuit courts with respect to the marijuana rider. Such conflicts typically increase the likelihood that the Supreme Court will weigh in.

“This case presents an opportunity for the Court to resolve the circuit split and provide a definitive interpretation of Congress’s language,” the petition says, contending that justices “can settle the substantial uncertainty that exists related to the protections afforded to the medical marijuana patients, distributors, cultivators, and regulators pursuant to the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment.”

Sirois obtained a medical marijuana caregiver license in Maine in 2010 and later obtained a historical building in Farmington that he converted into a cannabis cultivation facility, according to his petition. Individual caregivers rented rooms in the building and sold marijuana at wholesale prices to Sirois’s business, Lakemont LLC, which then sold it to patients.

In 2018, a suspect in a separate investigation mentioned Sirois as someone “with an extremely large grow operation,” it says, which prompted DOJ to open an investigation. In 2020, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided the facility, with an agent claiming in his application for a search warrant that the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment “does not apply [because] members of the conspiracy traffic in both marijuana and cocaine.”

Though no evidence of cocaine-related conduct was ever found, the petition asserts, the federal government filed charges “related to his cultivation and distribution of marijuana under the CSA.”

Despite Sirois raising the Rohrabacher–Farr defense, the trial court ruled against him, concluding that a “reasonable mind” might agree that DOJ’s investigation of him was warranted because of his apparent noncompliance with a 2011 state law prohibiting medical marijuana “collectives.” (Sirois argues that his conduct fell outside the technical definition of collectives and involved only “permissible, non-collective arrangements and activities,” noting that state regulators did not find him to be in violation of state regulations during the DOJ investigation.)

Sirois appealed the ruling to the First Circuit, which eventually sided with the government and affirmed the district court ruling.

In its opinion, the First Circuit said that “the party seeking an injunction pursuant to the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment bears the burden of demonstrating that the challenged DOJ action would ‘prevent a state from giving practical effect to its medical marijuana laws.’” Further, it said evidence in the case “tended to show” that Sirois was in fact operating as a collective in violation of Maine’s own regulations.

The new Supreme Court petition contends that ruling hinged on “two critical errors.”

“First, it required the defendant to, essentially, prove his or her innocence instead of making the government prove that its investigation and prosecution had continued justification sufficient to expend appropriated funds,” the filing says.

Additionally, it adds, the court “failed to define the contours of that standard or provide appreciable guidance to criminal defendants as to how to demonstrate such ‘substantial compliance.’”

Lawyers for Sirois call that outcome “not tenable,” writing in the brief: “Current and prospective participants in Maine’s medical marijuana program deserve clarity as to what showing must be made to establish substantial compliance.”

As for the split between the First Circuit and Ninth Circuit, the petition says that while the First Circuit requires a defendant to show “substantial compliance” with state laws and regulations, the Ninth Circuit in a related case said that individuals must demonstrate a higher standard—strict compliance—with state law.

“Therefore, we have a clear divergence between the two Courts of Appeals that have addressed it as to the basic standard applicable to defendants seeking to enjoin prosecutions under Rohrabacher-Farr,” Sirois’s petition says. “This issue will be dispositive to many potential defendants and determine whether they will face an intrusive, disruptive, and lengthy criminal investigation and prosecution.”

Further, it asserts that “while the First Circuit’s ‘substantial compliance’ test would sound more favorable to criminal defendants than the Ninth’s ‘strict compliance,’ neither provides potential criminal defendants with the protection Congress promised to them via the Amendment. And neither court has provided potential criminal defendants with any workable and predictable standard against which they could judge whether they could be subject to federal prosecution.”

Sirois’s attorneys say that because the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment uses the word “none,” an even higher standard applies.

“It seems as if neither Circuit could imagine a world in which Congress wanted the Federal Government to keep its nose out of state-authorized medical marijuana programs and allow the States to regulate and police their own citizens when violations happen,” the petition says, adding: “To the First Circuit, it was inconceivable that ‘none of the funds’ could actually mean ‘none.’”

Even if some responsibility lies with defendants to demonstrate compliance with state laws and regulations, it continues. “under the First Circuit’s test there is no clear guidance to defendants as to how they can show the requisite level of compliance.”

“This court needs to step in not only so there is one rule that can predictably guide behavior,” it urges justices, “but so that the principles of separation of powers and federalism are protected through a proper interpretation of the Amendment.”

According to the petition, the questions presented in the current case are threefold. First, “under what circumstances may the Department of Justice criminally investigate and prosecute an individual who is licensed or otherwise authorized to use, distribute, possess, or cultivate medical marijuana?” Second, is it the responsibility of the government or the defendant to demonstrate noncompliance or compliance, respectively, with state medical marijuana laws and regulations? And third, what is the proper test to demonstrate either strict or substantial compliance?

The petition in the case, Sirois v. U.S., was first reported by Law 360. A response from the government is due by March 17.

In an October op-ed for Marijuana Moment, attorney Christine Baily, who previously served as the first general counsel of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, said the First Circuit decision in the case “underscores the challenges criminal defendants will confront in convincing federal district courts that they should issue an injunction against prosecutors.”

“Criminal defendants must demonstrate substantial compliance with state medical marijuana laws and regulations, but possession of a license alone will likely be insufficient,” she wrote at the time, adding that it’s also “unlikely that state regulators will testify or provide evidence supporting compliance even if the agency issued, renewed or reinstated a license or determined that the licensee passed inspection during the time of the alleged CSA violations.”

In December, meanwhile, a First Circuit panel heard oral arguments in a case that cuts to the heart of federal marijuana prohibition, with plaintiffs contending that the U.S. government in recent years has abandoned its attempts to rein in what it still considers a federally illegal substance, citing as evidence the Rohrabacher–Farr budget rider.

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