Department of Justice

Is This The Lawsuit That Will Bring Medical Marijuana Legal Across The Nation?

Jeff Sessions wants us to 'Just Say No,' but this 12-year-old girl might have his number.

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National restrictions on marijuana use have long been stupid and hypocritical. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s stance on drugs is literally over 30 years old, which I suppose counts as “modern” for Sessions, since his stance on minorities and women is some 150 years old.

But when it comes to medical marijuana, there are no longer good arguments for it not being legal. If you are still against medical marijuana, the results are in and you are just wrong.

Perhaps this child will finally end this debate that has long been over. From ABC News:

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is being sued by a 12-year-old Colorado girl suffering from epilepsy who aims to legalize medical marijuana nationwide.

Alexis Bortell, along with her father and other plaintiffs, including former NFL player Marvin Washington, filed suit in the Southern District of New York against the attorney general as well as the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Bortell moved from Texas to Colorado so she could get “a strain of cannabis oil called Haleigh’s Hope,” which helps with her seizures. Had she remained in Texas, where medical marijuana is illegal, her next best medical option would have been brain surgery. Let’s go on and say that the marijuana treatment is better than opening up this little girl’s brain.

But, now that she’s on the stuff, Bortell is essentially trapped in Colorado or the other 29 states that allow medical marijuana usage. She can’t go back to Texas and visit her grandparents, for instance, because in Texas her parents are giving her an illegal drug. She could, technically, be removed from her family and placed with child protective services.

Hence, her lawsuit.

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And it’s not a dog of a case, the government has already tried to get the case dismissed, but a judge let it move forward.

I would love for a 12-year-old to be the one to help thousands of people when Congress has so pathetically failed to do so.

Jeff Sessions sued by 12-year-old girl with epilepsy who wants to legalize medical marijuana [ABC News]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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