NE AG's Opposition to Medical Marijuana

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pleasure to welcome Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilger's back to
the program. Mister ag, how are you this morning?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I A you doing great this morning, Gary, Thanks for
having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Good David back we had this time slot Friday. State
Senator Ben Hanson on he's working on, along with others
in the legislature, a mechanism to put in place when
medical marijuana becomes legal in Nebraska October first, to have
a system in place to regulate it and so on.
You and US Senator Pete Ricketts wrote a piece I

(00:33):
guess it was last Sunday week ago about how you
are in opposition of the legislature doing anything right now
for several reasons. Can you thumbnail that for us?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah? Absolutely, good. First ball center. Hanson's good friend. We
agree on so much, we very rarely disagree, and in
this case we do have a disagreement. The first thing is, look,
the proponents of this bill have said, hey, you know,
we have to act. If we don't act, then bad
things are going to happen. And that's a little bit
of a head scratching argument, Gary, because quite literally, the

(01:04):
voters passed a statute that says that was titled the
Medical Cannabis Regulation Act, and that act has actually an
entire regulatory structure, or at least directs a new commission
which now exists, to actually put in place a regulatory
structure this year. And so there is going to be
regulation that the voters passed the will of the people

(01:25):
this year. What we've said is, hey, don't go beyond
that for a couple of reasons. The first reason is
there's ongoing litigation. As you know, in my office we
litigated the petition process and district court that is now
on appeal in front of the US or Nebraska Supreme Court.
We have other litigation coming then, so we want to
see the legal landscape clear, give the legislature more information

(01:47):
to act if they need to in twenty twenty six.
But twenty twenty five is not the year to act
in our opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Before you move on to the other objections, let mean,
for those who didn't hear it Friday, here's what Senator
Hansen said about the letigate.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
This is what I said to committee members as well.
I said, that's like taking ten thousand dollars of your
own money and putting it on a roulette table. And
I got well, I probably wouldn't do that. Well, put
it on double zero. You know, that's the options of,
you know, a court case coming in favor of the
AG's office in the state to get rid of the
marijuana bell initiative.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
He doesn't believe your litigation will be successful, obviously, mister
Aildre's what do you say.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I think we've got strong arguments with the Nebraska
Supreme Court way those, but he's but keep in mind
there are some other arguments and other cases that are
coming down the road, and so I think they're Look,
marijuana is a schedule on drug. It's not it's not
allowed to be stold under federal law. We think that
anything that voters passed or that the legislature passed is

(02:46):
subject to that kind of a challenge. But we think
we've got good arguments. We trust the courts of Nebraska.
I certainly respectfully disagree as my friend in his his metaphor.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, yeah, I wondered too about the it's still still
manifestly illegal under federal law marijuana. You got other states
have done this and apparently the Feds don't bother them, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
That's that's right. And you've also seen in a lot
of other states, not the kind of challenges that we
would like to bring. And so, as you know, the
Constitution has a supremacy cause it basically says, hey, in
the limited instances in which federal and state law conflict,
federal law trumps. This is one of those rare instances
in which we think that there's a conflict. Federal law
has said you can't sell it. Nebraska is saying the

(03:33):
issue licenses to allow for the sale. We think that's preempted.
That litigation is not set up yet, but because it's
not quite right, but it's coming.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, what what has to happen for that to reach
a court?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think you have to get Yeah, Gary, you've got
to get You've got to get to a position where
someone actually is looking to issue licenses. Right now, there's
no the regulations haven't been fully put together about the
Cannabis Commission. There's no licenses being issues. It's not quite
yet the time for that kind of a lawsuit, but
it will come. And let me let me make this,
let me make this other argument. And what I would

(04:09):
say to the senators and the legislature if they don't
act this year, what will happen. What will happen is
there will be a set of regulations that will get
put in place by the Cannabis Commission. Our litigation will
have the opportunity to play itself out, and maybe maybe
center Hanson's right and we lose, or maybe he's wrong
and we win, in which case there will be valuable
information for the legislature on what they can or cannot do.

(04:32):
But if the Cannabis Commission doesn't quite get it right,
they'll be able to either change themselves in twenty twenty six,
or the legislature can act in twenty twenty six. But
suppose that they don't, that the legislature does act. And
if you read this one hundred and sixteen page Amendment
Gary that was introduced on this particular bill, it appears
to me to be set up for a future, a

(04:52):
world in which Nebraska's doing recreational marijuana. It's set up
that favor big businesses. It's got vertical, vertically integrated licenses.
This thing is set up for the future. If the
legislature passes something that happens to be too broad, it's
sort of like cutting off too much hair. You can't
go back. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
And so I think what we would argue the legislatures, Hey,

(05:13):
there's not a lot's going to happen over the next
nine months that you couldn't come back next year and
make a fix. But if you go too far this year,
the odds of you being able to actually put the
genie back in the bottle are very low. So that's
also caution stations, right.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
There's no question there are many in the state, including
some state senators, who desperately want this to go to
recreational but that doesn't address the real people who don't.
They just want they want the legal ability to get
a substance they think will help them. And as one
of our great listeners Scott pointed out, there is an
oil based pill form of THHC and that has been

(05:48):
an available been available in Nebraska for many years, and
it's available only with a prescription and only available for
anorexia and cancer patients. Maron all and dronabanol I think
they are and those are medically available, so but but
for general use for I don't know, pain management, I

(06:10):
don't know what all of the potential applications are. There
are people that would very much like to see this happen.
Mister Attorney General, thanks for your time this morning, and
you bet it'll be good. It'll be interesting to watch
this development.