Congressional Research Report: On the court watch list, the Maine residency cannabis case.
A Congressional Research Report that came out this week highlighted recent appellate “decisions of interest to lawmakers.”
Among them: Northeast Patients Group v. United Cannabis Patients and Caregivers of Maine.
The waves that this case made are slowly growing. It essentially blew a hole in the residency requirement argument and held that the Dormant Clause applies, regardless of whether it’s in an unregulated, illegal (state-legal cannabis) market.
At issue was the residency rule that required that Maine license holders be Mainers. A licensee wanted to sell to a Delaware company.
The 2-1 decision ruled that the “residency requirement was impermissible because it regulated an interstate market in a facially protectionist manner favoring Maine residents, and was not narrowly tailored to advance a legitimate local purpose,” the CRC report wrote.
“The court rejected the defendants’ claim that the dormant Commerce Clause did not apply because Congress eradicated the interstate market for marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The court concluded that an interstate market continued to exist after the CSA’s enactment, and that subsequent legislation, including regular appropriations restrictions preventing the Department of Justice from interfering with state medical marijuana laws, reflected congressional recognition of an interstate market for medical marijuana that the Maine law impeded.”
GW Pharma files a patent on CBV.
GW Research Ltd, the research arm of GW Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the only cannabis plant-derived drug approved by the FDA, has filed a patent with the World Intellectual Property Organization on the “use of cannabidivarin (CBDV) for the treatment of seizures associated with canine epilepsy.”
+ More: GW Pharma’s subsidiary Greenwich Biosciences has perhaps the biggest lobbying footprint of any entity working in cannabis, as Cannabis Wire has extensively reported.
Is a treatment coming for cannabis-related cyclical vomiting?
Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc., owned by The Vanguard Group, Inc, announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a Notice of Allowance for Opiant’s pipeline drug “drinabant” for treatment of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a “condition among cannabis users that leads to repeated and severe bouts of vomiting.”
“With the consumption of cannabis increasing, due in large part to the legalization of its recreational use, we are developing OPNT004 in anticipation that emergency departments may receive more and more cases of side effects related to chronic or heavy use,” Roger Crystal, president and CEO of Opiant, said in the announcement.
The drug is being developed as an injection.
