| Wing-Chi Poon/Commons. |
Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot told the media last summer that returning marijuana to a medicinal user was “not how we do business.”
But Wilmot did not return calls or even issue a statement this morning after the U.S. Supreme Court decided — by its inaction — that Wilmot must give the pot back to the patient. With the decision to turn down the Yuma case for a hearing, the U.S. Supreme Court has sided squarely with the state’s medical-marijuana law.
Apparently, the High Court may not believe what right-wing prohibitionists have been saying — that the federal Controlled Substances Act invalidates state laws like the voter-approved one in Arizona.
Perhaps Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery ought to re-evaluate his policy of spending taxpayer money on endless appeals of local court cases that have upheld the Arizona law. Just as Sheriff Wilmot lost this case in state appeals court, Montgomery’s been losing important cases on the issue, such as the former county ban on dispensaries in unincorporated areas, and the Zander Welton case on concentrates.
Previous U.S. Supreme Court cases, most notably the 2005 landmark case of Gonzales v. Raich that backed the federal prohibition on growing marijuana despite the freedoms given under California state law. But with this ruling, reportedly similar to California case the High Court declined to hear in 2008, the Supreme Court appears to give Arizona’s medical-pot legalization law its blessing.
Phoenix New Times has more.