Why is the U.S. government allowed to grow and distribute marijuana?
<p>In 1978, a program called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassionate_Investigational_New_Drug_program" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Compassionate Investigational New Drug program</a> was established, in which the United States government began supplying certain individuals with marijuana that is grown at the University of Mississippi. Although the program ended in 1992, <a href="http://www.medicalcannabis.com/patients-care-givers/federal-ind-patients/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">to this day four people are known to be living</a> and receiving this government grown cannabis.</p>

<p>What provisions, either in the CSA or a separate law, allow the federal government to ignore their own federally enacted laws so that they may grow and provide marijuana to patients? </p>

<p>It is not absolutely against the law to produce schedule 1 substances (such as marijuana). Per <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/822" rel="noreferrer">21 USC 822(a)(1)</a>,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Every person who manufactures or distributes any controlled substance
  or list I chemical...shall obtain annually a registration issued by
  the Attorney General</p>
</blockquote>

<p>which entails specific permissions to make, distribute etc, under (b). If you turn to the prohibitions in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/841" rel="noreferrer">21 USC 841</a>, it starts the list of prohibitions saying "Except as authorized by this subchapter, it shall be unlawful...". The code is liberally littered with the expression "unauthorized". The Attorney General is given authority under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/811" rel="noreferrer">21 USC 811</a> to make rules, thus can permit production.</p>

<p>It's not actually clear who the grower is in the Compassionate IND program. In the Randall case, the "doctrine of necessity" was apparently invoked successfully which led to charges against Randall being dropped. The legal details of the AGs blind eye towards states like Washington are a little hazy, as it were.</p>

<p>The Compassionate Investigational New Drug program is based on the common law defence of necessity, that is, if you 'need' to possess a controlled substance in the relevant sense then you can't be convicted of an offence for possessing it. </p>

<p>The program might well have been illegal (clearly the United States thought it was illegal if they opted for settlement rather than just dropping the charges) but the nature of settlement is that you agree to things you don't agree with.</p>

<p>Whether the United States lets you do whatever or whether they decided to prosecute you is up to the relevant prosecutors, who have a discretion about whether to begin a prosecution at all and, if they have begun a prosecution, they have a discretion to abandon it or to agree to a settlement.</p>

<p>In subsequent years, the United States decided to push back against the medical necessity defence and won in the Supreme Court: <em>United States v Oakland Buyers' Cooperative</em> (2001) 532 US 483.</p>

<p>However, since the people receiving marijuana under the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program were parties to a settlement with the United States, the United States must continue the program for them despite the Supreme Court confirming its illegality (or, to be more precise, confirming that absent a settlement it would have been illegal).</p>

united-states medical-marijuana