Utah Supreme Court rejects court challenge to medical marijuana law
Aug 7, 2019, 8:15 AM | Updated: 12:10 pm
FILE PHOTO -- Medical marijuana cultivation facility, in Milford, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
(AP Photo/Steven Senne)
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court rejected the argument from a group called “The People’s Right” that state leaders and lawmakers acted unconstitutionally in the process of replacing Proposition 2, the state’s voter referendum that would legalize medical marijuana.
Connor Boyack with the Libertas Institute supported Prop 2 but not the court petition.
“We knew going into the election that there’s nothing that protects Prop 2 or any ballot initiative. The state legislature can gut it, they can repeal it, they can modify it, and the Utah Supreme Court has made that clear,” he told KSL Newsradio.
The court petition outlined how The People’s Right didn’t like how the governor and lieutenant governor and legislature acted. Boyack says he worked with state lawmakers before that special session that came up with the new state law, a compromise version that replaced Prop 2.
“We feel we are operating more in reality than dreamland, and recognizing that this is the political landscape we are dealing with. The legislature can do what they did,” he said.
Boyack says he’s working on ways the law can be tweaked in the future, and he thinks the medical marijuana law will see changes in the next legislative session to benefit patients even more and be something that the public supports.
