The Associated Press
Lawyers for Arizona and the state’s most populous county argued in court Friday that federal drug laws pre-empt Arizona’s voter-approved medical marijuana law.
Meanwhile attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and its Arizona affiliate pushed for full implementation of the law passed in 2010, saying the state is allowed to make policy decisions on medical marijuana.
After a nearly two-hour hearing in northeast Phoenix, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon declined to issue an expedited ruling.
“This is an important decision. I don’t want to pull the trigger too quickly,” Gordon said. “I will do my best to get something out timely. I won’t give you a date. I have a lot of work to do.”
The case focuses heavily on the legal argument called pre-emption, an issue that has been around since the Founding Fathers declared that the laws of the United States “shall be the supreme law of the land.”
