West v. Holder

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN D. BATES, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Arthur West, an Olympia, Washington resident, uses marijuana for medical purposes but objects to the wider use and distribution of “recreational” marijuana authorized by his home state’s recently enacted Initiative 502 (“1-502”). To combat this initiative, West sued several state- and federal-government defendants, arguing (among other things) that the Department of Justice’s stance toward Washington’s marijuana legislation “[rose] to the level of substantial and expressive harm to the structure of federalism in violation…