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Missoula Public Library
Rep. Diane Sands (D-Missoula) stood up for medical marijuana patients — and was investigated by the DEA

​Montana legislator Diane Sands has come under investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, and she’s not sure why. But Sands said she suspects the investigation is because she advocates liberalizing the marijuana laws.

Sands told the Colorado Independent‘s Scot Kersgaard that she has no involvement in medical marijuana other than her work in the Montana Legislature. But the Missoula Democrat has been outspoken in advocating for reducing penalties for marijuana, and also advocating for the federal delisting of cannabis so that the issue can be decided by individual states.
“Because of the federal supremacy clause, federal law always trumps state law,” Sands said. “We fought a civil war over this. There is nothing a state can do to make marijuana legal, or even to make medical marijuana legal, but there is a process to change that at the federal level. Now that so many states have made medical marijuana legal, the federal government should remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controllled Substances Act, and let the states regulate marijuana as they see fit.”