Courts ask Legislature to allow problem‑solving courts to enforce medical‑cannabis abstention in limited cases; patients and industry resist

An aide to Utah courts told the Medical Cannabis Governing Structure Working Group May 20 that judges in problem‑solving courts sometimes cannot enforce clinical treatment plans because statute bars requiring abstinence from medical cannabis, and the Administrative Office of the Courts asked legislators to consider targeted statutory change for those courts.

The proposal matters because problem‑solving courts (drug courts, treatment courts and mental‑health calendars) are multidisciplinary teams focused on recovery; the courts say current law limits their ability to require abstention from medical cannabis even when treatment professionals find it a barrier to a participant’s recovery plan.

"If you look at 78 a 2 2 31 ... the statute ... basically says that a court judge has to treat the use of medical cannabis the same as any other lawfully prescribed controlled substance," Michael Drexel, assistant state court administrator, told the working group. He said the same statute also contains a provision barring a court from requiring abstinence: "subsection 3 says, notwithstanding all of that, [a] court is prohibited…