{"id":23467,"date":"2014-10-24T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T17:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=23467"},"modified":"2014-10-24T12:41:48","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T17:41:48","slug":"does-the-legalization-of-marijuana-violate-international-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2014\/10\/does-the-legalization-of-marijuana-violate-international-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Legalization of Marijuana Violate International Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The shift toward legalization of marijuana has gained a lot of momentum in the past few years. By a recent count, more than twenty states have enacted legislation that permits use of one form or another. Most allow only medical use, but Colorado and Washington also permit recreational consumption. For present purposes, I take no position on the policy merits of this\u00a0development. I do, however, want to point out that the marijuana debate tends to\u00a0overlook an important issue\u2014namely, federal tolerance for legalization of the sort that has occurred in Colorado and Washington probably places the United States in material breach of international law.<\/p>\n

The argument is pretty straightforward: The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs provides that parties \u201cshall take such legislative and administrative measures as may be necessary . . . to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of\u201d cannabis, among other drugs. Having joined the treaty in 1967, the United States is bound to comply. But for the most part, the Obama Administration has chosen not to enforce federal drug laws against recreational consumption in Colorado and Washington, and state authorities in those jurisdictions obviously do not have state prohibitions to enforce. Thus, the United States no longer takes \u201cadministrative measures\u201d that are necessary to limit use to medical and scientific purposes. A comparable analysis applies under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention Against Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, both of which contain similar provisions and bind the United States as a party.<\/p>\n

This argument is neither new nor creative. The UN agency that oversees the treaties’ implementation\u2014the International Narcotics Control Board\u2014has reached the same conclusion. In a message accompanying the INCB\u2019s annual report for 2013, the agency president stated that the federal response to legalization in Colorado and Washington \u201ccontravene[s] the provisions of the drug control conventions, which limit the use of cannabis to medical and scientific use only.\u201d<\/p>\n

One commentator has\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that federalism excuses the treaty violations by prohibiting the federal government from compelling states to enforce federal law. This claim appears to rely on the Supreme Court\u2019s anti-commandeering principle, which holds that Congress can\u2019t oblige the fifty states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program, or conscript state officers to enforce federal law. But I\u2019m not persuaded. First, the Court has never applied the principle as a limitation on the treaty power, and there is no consensus on when\u00a0or even whether it\u00a0would\u00a0be appropriate to do so. Second, even if anti-commandeering generally applies in the treaty context, the principle doesn\u2019t excuse the type of breach that is occurring here\u2014i.e., one that arises from the Administration\u2019s decision not to use\u00a0federal\u00a0<\/em>resources to limit marijuana use within the United States to medical and scientific purposes. That decision has absolutely nothing to do with commandeering.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear, moreover, that federalism does not generally preclude the Administration from taking the kinds of administrative measures that the treaty demands. As\u00a0Missouri v. Holland<\/em>\u00a0explained long ago, the subject-matter limitations that reside in the various clauses of Article I, Section 8 do not apply to the treaty power, so the provisions in question impose a\u00a0valid obligation. And even if one disagrees with\u00a0Holland<\/em>, the Court\u2019s more recent decision in\u00a0Gonzales v. Raich<\/em>\u00a0established that the Commerce Clause includes the power to prohibit the local cultivation and consumption of marijuana. If it wanted to, the Administration could return the United States to compliance by enforcing existing\u00a0laws that are valid under this precedent.<\/p>\n

What, then, are the consequences of the breach? The Single Convention spells out a series of procedures that the INCB can initiate in response, beginning with consultations and ending\u00a0with discussion of the matter in the UN General Assembly. Although its relevance is less likely, Article 14(d)(2) adds that the INCB may also \u201crecommend to Parties that they stop the import of drugs, the export of drugs, or both, from or to the country or territory concerned, either for a designated period or until the Board shall be satisfied as to the situation in that country or territory.\u201d The primary consequence, then, appears to be reputational\u2014the United States marks itself as a state that violates international drug laws, with possible adverse effects on the willingness of other states to cooperate with our enforcement efforts in related areas. Regardless of what you think about legalization, this is a problem if you\u00a0care about the\u00a0international rule of law and the standing of the United States in the international community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The shift toward legalization of marijuana has gained a lot of momentum in the past few years. By a recent count, more than twenty states have enacted legislation that permits use of one form or another. Most allow only medical use, but Colorado and Washington also permit recreational consumption. For present purposes, I take no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[126,20,122],"tags":[178,164,163,165],"class_list":["post-23467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-law","category-international-law","category-public","tag-federalism","tag-international-law-2","tag-marijuana-legalization","tag-single-convention","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}