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On Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson granted a group of cannabis industry stakeholders an extension to file a request with the Supreme Court to review a case out of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. Specifically, the industry stakeholders – Massachusetts cannabis stakeholders – are seeking to overturn the 2005 landmark case Gonzales v. Raich, which held that Congress has the constitutional power to regulate intrastate cannabis operations. In short, the Raich Court found that there was a rational basis for the federal government to regulate cannabis operations that occurred wholly in one state (i.e., no cannabis crossing state lines). The stakeholders challenging Raich assert that the rational basis that may have existed in 2005 to justify the Raich decision no longer persists because the federal government has essentially turned a blind eye to state cannabis operators that comply with state law.
