Law Commons^™

We(Ed) The People Of Cannabis, In Order To Form A More Equitable Industry: A Theory For Imagining New Social Equity Approaches To Cannabis Regulation, Garrett I. Halydier

University of Massachusetts Law Review

States increasingly implement “social equity” programs as an element of new cannabis regulations; however, these programs routinely fail to achieve their goals and frequently exacerbate the inequities they purport to solve, leaving inequitable industries, high incarceration rates, and broken communities in their wake. This ineffectiveness is due to the industry’s fundamental confusion of the modern, individualized concept of “equity” with the historical, society-level concept of “social equity.” In this paper, I develop a new theory of “cannabis social equity” to integrate these concepts, and I apply that theory, first, to diagnose why current policies fall short and, second, to propose …

From Streets To Stats: A Statistical Analysis Of The Quantity Of Illegal Narcotics Seized In The United States, Zachary T. Strickland

Tenor of Our Times

This study aims to determine how seven different variables affect the total quantity of illegal narcotics seized. These seven variables include four dichotomous and three continuous variables, each striving to teach readers how they relate to the quantity of narcotics seized across specific states. My goal for this project is to figure out if there is any relationship to help law enforcement fight the war on drugs. With the continuing apparent rise of this war, this study is crucial in determining potential relationships between a state's characteristics and the quantity of illegal narcotics they forcibly take possession of. I further …

Altering United States Drug Policy And Shifting The Focus Of Drug Use From Conviction Toward Drug Addiction Treatment, Natalie Marra

Honors Projects

While these substances were not always controlled by law, drug use has been as issue throughout time going back thousands of years and continues to be a concern in the twenty-first century. Possession, distribution, and manufacturing of controlled substances outside of what is considered legal can lead to fines and or jail time and can also increases the severity of other crimes committed either due to or under the influence of drugs. As of Saturday June 10th, 2023, 44.5% of Federal inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses, including possession, distribution, and manufacturing1. Drug offenses make up the largest percentage of …

United States Food Law Update, Michael Tingey Roberts

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Update on new developments in United States food law.

"Just Ice" For Bourbon: The Need For Gis In International Protection Of America's Beloved Spirit, Haley Scott

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The term "bourbon" has become increasingly popular in markets all over the globe. The popularity of the bourbon trend has been exploited for both labelling liquors and describing nonalcoholic products. Bourbon has several separate definitions, usually differing on the issue of the geographical scope of the spirit's production. The bourbon liquor industry has experienced periods of significant downturn followed by periods of explosive revival, motivated mainly by foreign interest, from countries such as Japan, in the product In the 1970s, Japanese interest in whisky and US bourbon facilitated a resurgence of the then-struggling US bourbon industry. In 2018, production of …

Beyond Compulsory Licensing: Pfizer Shares Its Covid-19 Medicines With The Patent Pool, Chenglin Liu

Faculty Articles

On March 15, 2022, the United States, European Union, India, and South Africa reached an agreement on the waiver of intellectual property rights (IP rights) for COVID-19 vaccines. The waiver agreement has rekindled the debate on the balance between IP rights protection and equitable access to medicines during a public health crisis. India, South Africa, and other developing countries maintain that a waiver was the only way to make vaccines affordable and accessible. Leading pharmaceutical companies argue that the waiver will stifle innovation and make lifesaving medicines less accessible. Both sides have seemingly overlooked Pfizer's voluntary agreement with the Medicines …

Legal And Ethical Implications Of U.S. And Canadian Vaccine Contracts: The Impact Of Vaccine Nationalism On The Global Pandemic Response, Ryan S. Tahiri

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This note explores the COVID-19 vaccine contracts between the U.S. and Canada and the impact of these types of agreements on the global pandemic response. These “pre-purchases,” many of which were executed before the development of a vaccine, have afforded a select few nations the opportunity to stockpile vaccines, while other nations with fewer resources are unable to secure any doses. An effective method to counter the effects of the pandemic is the creation of a global vaccine network that provides equitable access to vaccine doses for nations in need. COVAX was launched to ensure that lower and middle-income nations …

Organic Waste Bans: Beyond The Compost Heap, David Lee

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Food waste and food insecurity are strange bedfellows, but in the United States they shamelessly walk hand-in-hand. The USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”) and the Emergency Food Assistance Program (“TEFAP”) are two federal programs that provide for large numbers of people in the United States. Local food recovery and donation programs serve their communities as the “backbone of the America hunger response" efforts. While many American households continue to report their struggles with food insecurity, heaping piles of good food go to waste. The repercussions of wasted food are vast, taxing American wallets, wasting our resources with every bit …

Putting Paper To Pen: Generation Juul's Case For Harm Reduction, Liz Emanuel

Indiana Law Journal

Part I of this Note soberly explores and delineates the perceived and real threats of vaping for America’s youth, concluding with an analysis of the socioeconomic and developmental health effects of nicotine addiction. Part II delves into the federal government’s response to e-cigarettes as well as the powers and limitations of federal regulation under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “Deeming Rule” and the potential effectiveness of an increase in the national tobacco purchase age or a federal ban on flavored vaping products. Part III discusses the realistic benefits of taking a harm reduction approach to youth vaping in the …

Puff Puff Pass The Legislation: A Comparison Of E-Cigarette Regulations Across Borders, Rachel E. Zarrabi

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This comment explores the types of legislation, approaches to regulating e-cigarettes, and analyzes whether the FDA’s campaign and current regulations are effective. So far, it appears that the United States is ahead of the game with its new, aggressive proposal for regulating e-cigarettes. The FDA is standing against the companies and products that target youthful consumers. Most countries acknowledge the gaps in current scientific research regarding the long-term health risks of vaping, and some are waiting to take a legislative stance until it is clearer which side of the health line e-cigarettes fall. Section II of this comment discusses the …

Ethical Cannabis Lawyering In California, Francis J. Mootz Iii

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Cannabis has a long history in the United States. Originally, doctors and pharmacists used cannabis for a variety of purposes. After the Mexican Revolution led to widespread migration from Mexico to the United States, many Americans responded by associating this influx of foreigners with the use of cannabis, and thereby racializing and stigmatizing the drug. After the collapse of prohibition, the federal government repurposed its enormous enforcement bureaucracy to address the perceived problem of cannabis, despite the opposition of the American Medical Association to this new prohibition. Ultimately, both the states and the federal government classified cannabis as a dangerous …

Comparative Cannabis: Approaches To Marijuana Agriculture Regulation In The United States And Canada, Ryan Stoa

Ryan B. Stoa

The United States and Canada may be friends and allies, but the two countries' approaches to the regulation of marijuana agriculture have not evolved in tandem. On the contrary, their respective paths toward legalization and regulation of marijuana agriculture are remarkably divergent. In the United States, where marijuana remains a federally prohibited and tightly-controlled substance, legalization and regulation have remained the province of state legislatures and their administrative agencies for decades. In Canada, a succession of court cases paving the way toward medicinal marijuana use has prompted the federal government to develop a national framework committed to "legalize, regulate, and …

What Is The Purpose Of The Orphan Drug Act?, Matthew Herder

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Orphan Drug Act (ODA) [1], first enacted in the United States in 1983, was set up to encourage the development of drugs for rare diseases. At that time, drug therapies for such diseases were rarely developed. Three decades later, a growing proportion of industry research and development (R&D) [2] and regulatory drug approvals [3] target diseases affecting fewer than 200,000 persons in the United States, the prevalence-based threshold of rare disease under the ODA.

In a new article published in PLOS Medicine, Aaron Kesselheim and colleagues document an embedded trend: within the …

Carrots And Sticks: Safer Fresh Produce In The United States Through British Style Supermarket Co-Regulation, Victoria Tokar

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Where You Stand Depends On Where You Sit": Should The United States' Fda Have Followed The Lead Of Great Britain's Mhra In Banning Antidepressant Drug Use In Children And Adolescents?, Jennifer Dorminey

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Vaccines And The Law, Michael Sanzo Ph.D.

Pepperdine Law Review

The last twenty years have seen a sea-change in the area of proving causation in the toxic tort setting, with courts demanding stronger, scientifically tested evidence. At the same time, a closely related debate has been raging about separating cause from coincidence under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act compensation program for injuries that might have been the result of vaccinations. The Vaccine Act created a no-fault compensation fund financed by a tax on childhood vaccines to address harms resulting from those vaccines. Unfortunately, Congress gave little direction with regard to the level of causal certainty that would be required …

Use Patents, Carve-Outs, And Incentives — A New Battle In The Drug-Patent Wars, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

The Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 aims to strike a balance between the innovation incentives provided by patents and the greater consumer access provided by low-cost generic drugs. The legislation, which relies in part on an explicit link between the FDA drug approval process and the U.S. patent system, has been controversial, particularly because of the ways in which firms producing brand-name drugs have exploited that link to delay market entry of generics as long as possible. Voluminous scholarship has focused on so-called "pay-for-delay" settlements of patent litigation between brand name and generic firms.

In contrast, this Perspective uses the lens …

United States--Certain Measures Affecting Imports Of Poultry From China: The Fascinating Case That Wasn't, Donald H. Regan

Articles

US–Poultry (China) was the first Panel decision dealing with an origin-specific SPS measure, or with what the United States referred to as an ‘equivalence regime’. More specifically, it was the first instance in which the basis for the challenged measure was the claimed inability of the complainant country to enforce its own food-safety rules. Unfortunately, as the litigation developed, the very interesting novel issues raised by such a measure were not discussed. This essay discusses those novel issues – in particular, what sort of scientific justification or risk assessment should be required for a measure like this, and what SPS …

Prescription For Change: Third Circuit Diagnoses Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives As Exempt From Overtime Pay In Smith V. Johnson & Johnson, Brooke Burns

Villanova Law Review

The article presents information on the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing brand-name drugs and the issues related to pharmaceutical sales representative (PSR). The intensive sales training program, the exempt from overtime pay based on the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act and the economic justice and security of low income group are discussed. The court decision of Smith v. Johnson & Johnson, white-collar exemptions and employee misclassification are also discussed.

A Decade After Drug Decriminalization: What Can The United States Learn From The Portuguese Model?, Jordan Blair Woods

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Case For Legal Regulation Of Physicians’ Off-Label Prescribing, Doriane Lambelet Coleman, Philip M. Rosoff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Testing The Limits: Alcohol & Drug Testing For Offshore Employees, Brian Johnston, Tara Erskine

Dalhousie Law Journal

The legal limits of drug and alcohol testing by employers in the Atlantic Canada offshore are not yet entirely clear. To shed light on where these limits may lie, the authors examine the relevant law in the United Kingdom and the United States, together with the law on testing in Canada generally and the applicable provisions of the Accord Acts.

Sentencing In The States: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Julie Stewart

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Mandatory sentencing laws are responsible for the booming prison population in the United States. They are applied most frequently to crimes involving drugs and mandate harsh penalties of five, ten, twenty years or more behind bars for crimes involving no violence. Julie Stewart, President of the Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation (FAMM) and the sister of a marijuana user who spent five years in a federal prison, describes the unfairness of America’s sentencing policies, with a particular emphasis on the application of mandatory minimum sentences to drug-related convictions. These laws have led to a marked increase in the number of …

The International Conference On Harmonization Of Pharmaceutical Regulations, The European Medicines Evaluation Agency, And The Fda: Who's Zooming Who?, Dan Kidd

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

A U.S. Perspective On The Ec Hormones Directive, Holly Hammonds

Michigan Journal of International Law

On December 31, 1985, the European Community ["EC"] adopted the "Council Directive Prohibiting the Use in Livestock Farming of Certain Substances Having a Hormonal Action" ("the Directive"). The directive, originally scheduled to take effect on January 1, 1988, prohibits the use of hormones, natural and synthetic, in livestock production and the sale of meat treated with hormones in the EC market. The United States believes that the directive violates the requirements of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade ("Standards Code" or "Code").

The Hormone Conflict Between The Eec And The United States Within The Context Of Gatt, Werner P. Meng

Michigan Journal of International Law

For many years, consumer organizations within the European Community have demanded the prohibition of natural and synthetic hormones from use in animal fodder. Since the level of hormone use by breeders varies among Member States, demands for a hormone prohibition have also differed in intensity from State to State. After lengthy negotiations beset with legal difficulties, a general, community-wide prohibition became reality at the beginning of 1989. The price of this policy has been trade difficulties with the United States which, up to the present time,' have resulted in trade sanctions and economic losses on both sides. Since both parties …

The Ec Hormone Ban Dispute And The Application Of The Dispute Settlement Provisions Of The Standards Code, Allen Dick

Michigan Journal of International Law

As the concept of a unified European market becomes more of a reality as we approach 1992, talk of a "Fortress Europe" has heightened sensitivity on trade issues among officials of the United States and the European Community ("EC"). The EC's plan to ban the sale of meat treated with growth hormones within the Member-States has presented a trade issue disconcerting to both sides. This brewing tempest has raised many interesting legal issues involving the dispute settlement provisions set out in the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade ("Standards Code"). This note examines why the process failed to resolve, and …