## Facts

- Federal prosecutors charged Brian Justin Pickard and others with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana plants under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), including 21 U.S.C. § 846.
- Defendants moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I controlled substance is unconstitutional.
- The court held an evidentiary hearing with expert testimony and documentary evidence on marijuana’s medical use, safety under medical supervision, and abuse potential.
- Defense experts asserted marijuana has medical uses and can be used safely under medical supervision; one defense expert conceded marijuana has a high potential for abuse.
- The government’s expert testified that whole-plant marijuana lacked confirmed accepted medical use and could not be used safely under medical supervision due to potency variability and other risks.
- Defendants also relied on Department of Justice guidance (including the Cole Memorandum) to argue that federal enforcement practices differed by state and thereby created unconstitutional geographic disparities.

## Issues

1. Whether marijuana’s continued Schedule I classification under the CSA violates the Fifth Amendment (due process/equal protection principles) as applied to defendants charged with marijuana offenses.
2. Whether DOJ marijuana enforcement guidance and state-by-state differences in enforcement violate the Tenth Amendment “equal sovereignty of the states” doctrine or equal protection principles.
3. Whether a district court in a criminal prosecution may consider a constitutional challenge to marijuana’s scheduling rather than requiring use of the CSA’s administrative rescheduling process.

## Decision

- The court applied rational-basis review because the claims did not implicate a suspect classification or a fundamental right.
- The court denied the motion to dismiss and allowed the prosecution to proceed.
- The court held that Congress and the Executive could rationally continue to classify marijuana as Schedule I given ongoing expert disagreement about medical use, safety, and abuse potential.
- The court rejected challenges based on DOJ enforcement guidance, concluding the CSA applies uniformly nationwide and the guidance did not change legal obligations or prosecutorial authority.
- The court held the “equal sovereignty of the states” doctrine did not apply because the federal statute did not impose different legal rules on different states.

## Legal Principles

- Under rational-basis review, a statutory classification is constitutional if any reasonably conceivable set of facts provides a rational justification for it.
- Credible disagreement among experts regarding medical use, safety, and abuse potential can supply a rational basis for Congress’s and the Executive’s scheduling judgment under the CSA.
- The CSA’s nationwide prohibition on marijuana is facially geographically neutral; differences in enforcement intensity stemming from prosecutorial discretion do not, by themselves, establish an equal protection violation.
- Non-binding DOJ enforcement memoranda state priorities for prosecutorial discretion and do not create enforceable rights, alter the CSA’s scope, or limit federal charging authority.
- The “equal sovereignty of the states” doctrine is principally implicated when Congress imposes materially different statutory terms on different states; it is not triggered by uniform statutory text combined with variable state policy choices and federal enforcement priorities.

## Conclusion

The court upheld marijuana’s Schedule I classification against Fifth Amendment challenges under rational-basis review and rejected Tenth Amendment and equal-protection arguments premised on discretionary, non-binding federal enforcement guidance, denying defendants’ motion to dismiss the indictment.


United States v. Pickard, 100 F. Supp. 3d 981 (E.D. Cal. 2015)