Law Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for legal professionals, students, and others with experience or interest in law. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
If a doctor recommends medical marijuana to a patient who lives in a state without compassionate-care laws established, can that patient successfully sue the state for access on the grounds that a doctor is an expert in health whereas legislatures are not?
Another way to think about this is how the Federal Marijuana program works and how it protects registered patients from State intervention. (Since 1977, well before prop 215 in California).
Generally, no. Legislatures pass laws. The fact that someone else knows more about the thing they're passing laws about is utterly irrelevant -- the power to make laws is given to the legislature, not to experts. If the legislature thinks experts should make the rules on something, they can delegate (this is why the FDA approves medicine rather than Congress), but the legislature of a state generally has the power to pass any law that is not unconstitutional.
Your analogy to paper money is a poor one: that's a federalism thing, not an expertise thing. Congress has established a system of paper money, and states can't interfere with that. It's not that the Fed thinks paper money is good, it's that Congress said paper money shall be a thing. That could stop a state from banning an FDA-approved drug; however, since marijuana is illegal under federal law, it would be odd to conclude that banning it at the state level as well is preempted.
Legislators aren't inherently experts on anything (except being elected). That doesn't matter. They have the authority to pass laws, even if those laws directly go against the views of people who are recognized experts in the area.
You appear to think there must be a judicial remedy against bad policy. You would be wrong. The role of the courts is not to decide what policies are good or bad; they are concerned only with what is legal. Deciding what policies are good or bad is a matter for the democratically elected representatives of the people, or for the people themselves in states with ballot questions. It is not the job of the courts.
