A lawsuit filed final week in Connecticut Superior Court docket is difficult hashish legalization within the state and asking a decide to cease hashish gross sales, CT News Junkie studies. The criticism was filed by the Stamford Neighborhoods Coalition and greater than a dozen particular person plaintiffs and names Mayor Caroline Simmons and the town’s Zoning Board as defendants.
The group is searching for an injunction to ban hashish enterprise operations in Stamford and the state as an entire on the grounds that the 2021 regulation legalizing hashish possession and industrial gross sales was preempted by the federal Managed Substances Act.
Within the criticism, lawyer David Herz argued that “Underneath federal regulation anybody concerned within the rising, manufacturing, distribution or meting out, or possession with intent to fabricate, develop, distribute or dispense marijuana is marijuana trafficking topic to federal prosecution below the federal Managed Substances Act.”
“It’s subsequently unconstitutional and can’t be relied upon by the Metropolis of Stamford or its Zoning Board to allow the unlawful enterprise that’s each Hashish enterprise.” — Herz, within the criticism, by way of CT Information Junkie
The lawsuit additionally claims that the social fairness provisions within the hashish regulation violate an equal rights provision of the state structure. The regulation created a Social Fairness Council meant to make sure that the retail market benefited the Connecticut communities most impacted by the enforcement of hashish prohibition. The criticism refers back to the creation of the council as a “scheme” that’s “impermissibly chosen primarily based on race.”
“The aim of the Social Fairness Counsel is to entitle a sure set of individuals to unique public emoluments,” the lawsuit argues.
A Congressional Analysis Service report Up to date in March discovered that whereas the federal authorities has taken a largely hands-off method to hashish reforms enacted by the states, “The Division of Justice (DOJ) has nonetheless reaffirmed that marijuana development, possession, and trafficking stay crimes below federal regulation regardless of states’ marijuana legal guidelines.”
“Federal regulation enforcement has usually centered its efforts on felony networks concerned within the illicit marijuana commerce,” the report says.
Grownup-use hashish gross sales in Connecticut reached $13 million in July.
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