US Military’s Highest Court Schedules November 19 Hearing on Challenge to Cannabis Drug Testing Rule – United States v. Collyn L. Lawrence

The Marijuana Herald reports

The nation’s highest military appeals court has scheduled a November 19 hearing in a case that could change how marijuana-related drug offenses are prosecuted throughout the U.S. armed forces, particularly when a positive drug test is the primary evidence of knowing marijuana use.

According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces’ official hearing calendar, oral arguments in United States v. Collyn L. Lawrence will begin at 9:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, November 19, in Washington, D.C. Attorneys for both sides will receive 20 minutes to present their arguments.

The case centers on a longstanding military legal principle known as the “permissive inference,” which allows judges to infer that a service member knowingly consumed marijuana based on the presence of THC metabolites in their body, even without direct evidence of intentional use.

Lawrence, an Air Force member convicted of wrongful THC use following a random drug test in January 2024, is challenging the constitutionality of that inference. His attorneys argue that widespread marijuana legalization, commercial availability and the proliferation of THC-containing products have fundamentally changed the circumstances under which the principle was established decades ago.

Lawrence’s urine sample contained 22 nanograms per milliliter of a THC metabolite, compared to the Department of Defense’s positive testing threshold of 15 nanograms. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to a reduction in rank and a reprimand.

As previously reported by The Marijuana Herald, Lawrence’s attorneys are asking the court to partially overturn its 1987 decision in United States v. Ford, which upheld the use of the permissive inference in marijuana cases.

The defense argues that the growing availability of marijuana through licensed retailers, along with products that can resemble ordinary consumer goods, has increased the possibility of unknowing exposure. Attorneys contend that military prosecutors should be required to establish knowing marijuana use through evidence beyond a positive urinalysis result.

In its response brief, the federal government disputes that argument, maintaining that civilian marijuana legalization has not undermined the inference’s constitutionality. Prosecutors argue that marijuana remains prohibited for military personnel and that Lawrence has not demonstrated that accidental ingestion has become sufficiently common to invalidate the longstanding rule.