Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-01-01182/USCOURTS-caDC-01-01182-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Drug Enforcement Administration
Respondent
Jon Gettman
Petitioner
High Times Magazine
Petitioner

Document Text:

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 19, 2002 Decided May 24, 2002

No. 01-1182

Jon Gettman and High Times Magazine,

Petitioners

v.

Drug Enforcement Administration,

Respondent

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

United States Drug Enforcement Agency

Michael Kennedy argued the cause and filed the briefs for

petitioners.

Daniel Dormont, Senior Attorney, Drug Enforcement Administration, argued the cause for respondent. With him on

the briefs were Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General,

U.S. Department of Justice, and Rose A. Briceno, Trial

Attorney.

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 1 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Before: Sentelle, Henderson and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Sentelle.

Sentelle, Circuit Judge: Jon Gettman and High Times

Magazine petition this Court for review of the March 20, 2001

decision of the Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA")

denying their petition to initiate rulemaking proceedings to

reschedule marijuana under 21 U.S.C. s 811(a). See Drug

Enforcement Administration Notice of Denial of Petition, 66

Fed. Reg. 20038 (April 18, 2001). The DEA contends we

should dismiss the petition for review, arguing that neither

Gettman nor High Times Magazine has standing to bring this

petition. Because we agree with the DEA, we dismiss the

petition.

I. Background

The Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. s 801, et seq.,

sets forth initial schedules of drugs and controlled substances

in 21 U.S.C. s 812(c). However, Congress established procedures for adding or removing substances from the schedules

(control or decontrol), or to transfer a drug or substance

between schedules (reschedule). 21 U.S.C. s 811(a). This

responsibility is assigned to the Attorney General in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services

("HHS"). Id. s 811(b). The Attorney General has delegated

his functions to the Administrator of the DEA. 28 C.F.R.

s 0.100(b). Current schedules are published at 21 C.F.R.

ss 1308.11-1308.15.

There are three methods by which the DEA may initiate

rulemaking proceedings to revise the schedules: (1) by the

DEA's own motion; (2) at the request of HHS; (3) on the

petition of any interested party. 21 U.S.C. s 811(a); 21

C.F.R. s 1308.43(a). Before initiating rulemaking proceedings, the DEA must request a scientific and medical evaluation from HHS and a recommendation. The statute requires

the DEA and HHS to consider eight factors with respect to

the drug or controlled substance. 21 U.S.C. s 811(b), (c).

These factors are:

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 2 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

(1) Its actual or relative potential for abuse.

(2) Scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if

known.

(3) The state of current scientific knowledge regarding

the drug or other substance.

(4) Its history and current pattern of abuse.

(5) The scope, duration, and significance of abuse.

(6) What, if any, risk there is to the public health.

(7) Its psychic or physiological dependence liability.

(8) Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of

a substance already controlled under this subchapter.

21 U.S.C. s 811(c). Although the recommendations of HHS

are binding on the DEA as to scientific and medical considerations involved in the eight-factor test, the ultimate decision

as to whether to initiate rulemaking proceedings to reschedule a controlled substance is made by the DEA. See id.

s 811(a), (b).

Jon Gettman petitioned the DEA in 1995 to initiate rulemaking proceedings under 21 U.S.C. s 811(a) to reschedule

various controlled substances, including marijuana. Subsequently High Times Magazine joined with him as a petitioner.

In their petition to DEA, Gettman and High Times claimed

that "there is no scientific evidence that [marijuana has]

sufficient abuse potential to warrant schedule I or II status"

under the Controlled Substances Act. In accordance with 21

U.S.C. s 811(b), the DEA forwarded the petition to HHS in

1997. In 2001, HHS recommended that marijuana remain in

schedule I and the DEA in turn denied the petition. No

action has been taken regarding the other drugs initially

named by Gettman.

Gettman and High Times filed this petition for review of

the DEA's refusal to initiate rulemaking proceedings to reschedule marijuana. On our own motion, we ordered supplemental briefing on standing, and specifically asked parties to

address the issue of injury.

II. Analysis

Article III, section 2, clause 1 of the United States Constitution limits the "judicial power" of the United States to the

resolution of "cases" or "controversies." Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church &

State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471 (1982); see Chicago & Grand

Trunk Ry. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U.S. 339, 345 (1892). In

order to establish the existence of a case or controversy

within the meaning of Article III, the party must meet

certain constitutional minima. As relevant to this case, these

include the requirement that the party must demonstrate that

it has standing to bring the action. See Lujan v. Defenders of

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). "Those who do not possess

Art. III standing may not litigate as suitors in the courts of

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 3 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

the United States." Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 475-76. Petitioners seem to believe that their "commitment" to their

cause and the alleged importance of their cause is enough to

confer Article III standing. It is not. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 739 (1972). To satisfy the constitutional

requirement of standing, a plaintiff or petitioner must, at an

"irreducible constitutional minimum ... demonstrate that it

has suffered a concrete and particularized injury that is: (1)

actual or imminent, (2) caused by, or fairly traceable to an act

that the litigant challenges in the instant litigation, and (3)

redressable by the court." Florida Audubon Soc'y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658, 663 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc) (internal

quotation marks and citations omitted); see Lujan, 504 U.S.

at 560-61. Neither Gettman nor High Times magazine meets

this standard.

A. Standing as an "Interested Party"

Petitioners contend that they have "automatic standing" to

appeal the DEA's denial of their petition because 21 U.S.C.

s 811(a)(2) permits "any interested party" to file a petition to

initiate rulemaking proceedings. They suggest that this is

enough--since they are the original petitioners before the

DEA they should not be "held to heightened requirements for

standing in pursuing judicial review of the DEA's order," and

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 4 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

at no time during the administrative proceedings has the

DEA claimed that they are not "interested part[ies]" under

21 U.S.C. s 811(a)(2). Petitioners misunderstand the law.

Petitioners may be "interested part[ies]" under the statute,

and therefore able to petition the agency, and yet not have

Article III standing to bring this action in federal court. See

Fund Democracy, LLC v. SEC, 278 F.3d 21, 27 (D.C. Cir.

2002). "Participation in agency proceedings is alone insufficient to satisfy judicial standing requirements." Id. Mere

interest as an advocacy group is not enough. The fact that

Congress may have given all interested parties the right to

petition the agency does not in turn "automatic[ally]" confer

Article III standing when that right is deprived. See id. at

27-28. The Constitution requires a concrete and particularized injury. This is not a "heightened requirement," but

rather the bare minimum. Thus, the grant of a procedural

right alone cannot serve as the basis for Article III standing

unless "the procedures in question are designed to protect

some threatened concrete interest of [petitioners'] that is the

ultimate basis of his standing." Fund Democracy, 278 F.3d

at 28 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573 n.8). The sufficiency of

the sort of "interest" allowing an interested party to petition

an agency at the will of Congress and the justicially protectable "interest" required for an injury to afford standing in the

courts is fundamentally the difference between the political

branches on the one hand and the Article III courts on the

other. While it is perfectly proper, and indeed appropriate

and even necessary, for the political branches to respond to

the abstract, ideological, philosophical or even idiosyncratic

wishes and needs of citizens or, for that matter, persons at

large, the courts are granted authority only for the purpose

delineated in Article III, section 2, clause 1 of the Constitution and "may exercise power only 'in the last resort and as a

necessity.' " Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 752 (1984) (quoting Chicago & Grand Trunk Ry., 143 U.S. at 345).

Therefore, contrary to petitioners' suggestion, it is not at

all anomalous that Congress could permit them as "interested

part[ies]" (assuming that they are) to participate in agency

proceedings, and yet they be unable to seek review in the

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 5 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

federal courts. "Because agencies are not constrained by

Article III, they may permit persons to intervene in the

agency proceedings who would not have standing to seek

judicial review of the agency action." Fund Democracy, 278

F.3d at 27; see Envirocare of Utah, Inc. v. NRC, 194 F.3d 72,

74 (D.C. Cir. 1999). In other words, the "criteria for establishing 'administrative standing' therefore may permissibly be

less demanding than the criteria for 'judicial standing.' "

Envirocare, 194 F.3d at 74. Thus, unless petitioners can

demonstrate an injury in fact, both particularized and concrete, as required by the Constitution, they lack standing to

appear before an Article III court.

B. Injury In Fact

Petitioners bear the burden of establishing an injury in

fact. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561. Neither petitioner meets

this burden.

Petitioner Gettman argues that he will suffer "economic or

competitive injury" from the DEA's decision not to initiate a

rescheduling rulemaking for marijuana because he is "a public policy professional qualified to research, advise, invest, and

profit from the development of medical marijuana." Gettman

asserts that the schedule I classification of marijuana constrains his "ability to research economic development in this

area and to sell his services as a policy analyst and/or

professor." Thus, Gettman contends that the DEA's order

has caused him injury "by narrowing the universe of customers of consulting services and also by stymieing his ability to

legally conduct clinical and social research on marijuana, its

effects and medical utility." Gettman's recitation of his interest and the injury to it fall far short of establishing a

judicially protected interest or a judicially remediable injury.

His desire to achieve vague objectives with relation to marijuana and his supposition that the DEA's failure to take the

action he requested will retard the achievement of those goals

does not cross the Article III threshold. "[A] mere 'interest

in a problem,' no matter how longstanding the interest and no

matter how qualified the organization is in evaluating the

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 6 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

problem, is not sufficient by itself...." Sierra Club v.

Morton, 405 U.S. at 739. Although the Supreme Court

announced that standard in construing the Administrative

Procedure Act, its applicability to standing analysis in general

is obvious, and in any event this case, like Sierra Club,

involves the construction of the APA.

Completing the inadequacy of Gettman's argument is the

purely speculative nature of the harm and its remediability.

There is no way to know whether anyone would beat a path to

Gettman's door were the DEA to begin the reevaluation of

marijuana. This sort of speculative claim falls far short of

establishing the "core constitutional component that a plaintiff must allege." Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 738. That is,

it does not "allege personal injury fairly traceable to the

defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief." Id. Not only is it sheer

speculation and conjecture to claim that the DEA could have

generated business of some sort for Gettman by commencing

the rulemaking, the remedy of that supposed injury depends

entirely upon "the independent action of some third party not

before the court." Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426

U.S. 26, 42 (1976).

In Simon, Allen v. Wright, and numerous other cases, the

courts have reiterated that such speculative claims dependent

upon the actions of third parties do not create standing for

the purposes of establishing a case or controversy under

Article III. In short, Gettman has set forth a speculative

injury dependent upon the conduct of third parties not before

the court, at best reciting injury to his philosophical interest.

We wish to make clear once again what the Supreme Court

has long dictated:

Recognition of standing in such circumstances would

transform the federal courts into "no more than a vehicle

for the vindication of the value interests of concerned

bystanders" ... Constitutional limits on the role of the

federal courts precludes such a transformation.

Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 756 (quoting United States v.

SCRAP, 412 U.S. 669, 687 (1973)).

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 7 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

With respect to High Times Magazine, petitioners argue

that it has associational standing to bring this action. That

theory fails. "An association only has standing to bring suit

on behalf of its members when its members would otherwise

have standing to sue in their own right, the interests it seeks

to protect are germane to the organization's purpose, and

neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires

the participation of individual members in the lawsuit."

Fund Democracy, 278 F.3d at 25 (emphasis added); see

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC),

Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 181 (2000). High Times Magazine stumbles on the first step. It does not have any members. "In

determining whether an organization that has no members in

the traditional sense may nonetheless assert associational

standing, the question is whether the organization is the

functional equivalent of a traditional membership organization." Fund Democracy, 278 F.3d at 25 (citing Hunt v.

Washington State Apple Adver. Comm'n, 432 U.S. 333, 342-

45 (1977); American Legal Found. v. FCC, 808 F.2d 84, 89-

90 (D.C. Cir. 1987)). High Times claims it is "committed to

the decriminalization of marijuana" and that many of its

"readers and subscribers are dependent on marijuana to treat

medical illnesses." But readership is not the same as membership. As in American Legal Foundation and our more

recent decision in Fund Democracy, petitioners have not

shown that its "readers and subscribers" played any role in

selecting its leadership, guiding its activities, or financing

those activities. See Fund Democracy, 278 F.3d at 26.

Therefore High Times Magazine has no basis for asserting

associational standing, no matter how "committed to the

decriminalization of marijuana" it may be.

Petitioners' off-hand assertion that the magazine itself has

suffered direct injury insofar as the schedule I status of

marijuana creates a "chilling effect" on its First Amendment

rights to investigate and report on the "medical and cultural

realities of marijuana" is unexplained and probably unexplainable. Granted, "[t]he Constitution gives significant protection

from overbroad laws that chill speech within the First

Amendment's vast and privileged sphere." Ashcroft v. Free

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 8 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Speech Coalition, 122 S. Ct. 1389, 1399 (2002). However, the

bald recitation that the failure to commence a rulemaking

somehow chills speech is not only insufficient, it is at least a

non sequitur and close to an absurdity. Moreover, nothing

about the DEA's decision involves speech or expression as

such. Cf. United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).

High Times has shown no way in which it or anyone else is

deterred from writing or speaking in any way by the lack of

the rulemaking.

Finally, petitioners contend that this Court and others have

permitted the filing of petitions for review of DEA orders by

parties who were "similarly situated to Jon Gettman and

High Times Magazine," and for that reason, their petition

should be heard. See NORML v. DEA, 559 F.2d 735 (D.C.

Cir. 1977); Grinspoon v. DEA, 828 F.2d 881 (1st Cir. 1987);

Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics v. DEA, 930 F.2d 936

(D.C. Cir. 1991) & 15 F.3d 1131 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Whether

the petitioners in these cases were "similarly situated" to

Gettman and High Times is an uncertainty at best as the

National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws

("NORML") and the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics may

have members, whereas High Times does not. However,

even if petitioners were to establish that the prior cases were

parallel, they are not controlling. In none of these cases did

the Court hold that the parties before it had established

constitutional standing. Where a court has simply assumed

standing, that assumption creates no precedent upon which

future litigants may rely. This is well established. In Coalition for Preservation of Hispanic Broadcasting v. FCC, 893

F.2d 1349 (D.C. Cir. 1990), we considered a claim that our

decision in Shurberg Broadcasting v. FCC, 876 F.2d 902 (D.C.

Cir. 1989), compelled the finding of standing in the case

before us. We declared that "[t]he various opinions in Shurberg Broadcasting v. FCC, 876 F.2d 902 (D.C. Cir. 1989),

assumed standing and did not assess the seriousness of

Shurberg's quest," and went on to hold that "cases in which

jurisdiction is assumed are not authority for the existence of

jurisdiction." Hispanic Broad., 893 F.2d at 1365 n.1 (citing

Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89,

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 9 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

119 (1984)). As we are only "bound by holdings," cf. Alexander v. Sandoval, 121 S. Ct. 1511, 1517 (2001), a case where the

standing issue was not confronted cannot be taken as "authority" for the existence of jurisdiction here. Although a court

may raise standing sua sponte (as we have done here), our

failure to do so in the past does not preclude us from doing so

now. Thus, these cases provide no basis for finding petitioners have suffered an injury in fact, much less that they have

standing.

III. Conclusion

Because petitioners Gettman and High Times Magazine

lack standing to bring this petition for review of the DEA's

decision, we dismiss the petition for review. It is

So ordered.

USCA Case #01-1182 Document #679843 Filed: 05/24/2002 Page 10 of 10