A federal appellate court has ruled that a New York cannabis licensing rule favoring in-state residents is unconstitutional, because it discriminates against applicants residing out-of-state. We have been tracking this case for the past couple of years ' see our prior posts here and here.
This decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is the first to apply the Dormant Commerce Clause to adult use cannabis ' and, in combination with an earlier decision involving Maine's medical cannabis program, suggests a trend toward rejection of all protectionist state cannabis laws despite the federal illegality of marijuana sales and use. The decision was a long time coming: we speculated as far back as 2015 on this blog that the Dormant Commerce Clause could be used to upend residency requirements for state cannabis programs.
Here, the Second Circuit decided that one of New York State's cannabis dispensary application pools could be challenged under the U.S. Constitution's Dormant Commerce Clause, because it favored applicants convicted in New York of marijuana-related crimes prior to legalization in 2021. The court reasoned that it was highly likely that people convicted of...
