{"id":583513,"date":"2026-04-14T11:29:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T11:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/583513\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T11:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T11:29:21","slug":"rfk-and-dr-oz-want-anti-marijuana-groups-lawsuit-challenging-medicare-hemp-coverage-program-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/583513\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK And Dr. Oz Want Anti-Marijuana Groups’ Lawsuit Challenging Medicare Hemp Coverage Program Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal health officials are asking a court to dismiss marijuana legalization opponents\u2019 lawsuit challenging a new Trump administration initiative to cover up to $500 worth of hemp-derived products each year for eligible Medicare patients<\/a>. The program being implemented by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)\u00a0focuses largely on CBD but also allows a certain amount of THC in products.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Director Mehmet Oz filed a brief on Thursday saying that the anti-cannabis organizations that filed the suit against the Medicare hemp coverage policy<\/a> do not have standing to bring the case.<\/p>\n

The prohibitionist groups, led by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), are \u201care unregulated parties in every sense\u201d and CMS has \u201cnot required them to do or refrain from doing anything,\u201d the government brief says, arguing that the plaintiffs have not actually been harmed by the policy.<\/p>\n

Beyond the advocacy organizations, the case\u2019s sole individual plaintiff is anti-marijuana lawyer David Evans, who claims he has standing to challenge the new Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive (BEI) as a Medicare recipient\u2014but the federal agencies reject that argument.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Evans opposes hemp products and will not use them. He says so himself,\u201d the brief says. \u201cNo one will force Mr. Evans to consume a hemp product. No one will force his provider to offer him one. His alleged injury is thus not that the [Medicare hemp program] will cause him any physical, monetary, or regulatory harm. His alleged injury is that he might be offered a product he will decline. That is not an Article III injury. It is an offense to his sensibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiffs are anti-cannabis advocacy organizations and one Medicare beneficiary. None participates in any Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (\u201cCMS\u201d) Innovation Center, also known as the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (\u201cCMMI\u201d), model. None administers the program they challenge. None faces any regulatory obligation from CMS. Their complaint is that CMS announced a voluntary component of existing models allowing willing providers to consult with consenting beneficiaries about eligible hemp products\u2014and they object to it. Under [Supreme Court precedent], objection is not injury.<\/p>\n

The individual Plaintiff, David Evans, receives care from an ACO REACH participant. He opposes hemp products and says he would never use them. His claimed injury is that his provider might someday elect a voluntary program, might someday offer him a product, and he might be upset. That chain of contingencies is not Article III standing. It is speculation about the independent choices of third parties who are not before this Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government also rejects the groups\u2019 claims that they have standing to sue because are being forced to waste resources opposing the Medicare hemp initiative that they would otherwise allocate toward fighting reforms like marijuana legalization and federal rescheduling.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery organizational Plaintiff exists to oppose cannabis access. The BEI did not divert these organizations from some unrelated core activity. It gave them exactly the kind of government action they exist to oppose,\u201d the federal brief says. \u201cTheir expenditure of resources to oppose it is the execution of their organizational missions, not a diversion from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSAM\u2019s own filings confirm the point. SAM attaches as Exhibit A (ECF No. 4-1) to Plaintiffs\u2019 motion its participation in the ongoing DEA marijuana rescheduling proceedings and alleges in the Complaint that the BEI has \u2018rendered essentially moot\u2019 its expenditure of resources opposing rescheduling because the BEI \u2018provides marijuana products via a medical source.\u2019 This argument fails twice. For starters, the BEI does not provide marijuana products but concerns hemp products. Hemp is not marijuana. Equally important, even accepting SAM\u2019s mischaracterization, its argument is that a separate government action under separate statutory authority has made SAM\u2019s advocacy in a different proceeding less effective. That is not Article III injury. It is a complaint that law and policy landscape has shifted in a direction SAM dislikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from the question of standing, the federal agencies say the anti-marijuana groups\u2019 argument fails on the merits, citing statute that specifiies Medicare test models are not subject to administrative or judicial review.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs also err, the government says, by conflating their concerns about illegal marijuana with legal hemp.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress drew a bright statutory line between hemp and marijuana in the 2018 Farm Bill. Hemp is not a controlled substance. It is not illegal under federal law,\u201d the brief says. \u201cThere is no inconsistency, no reversal, and no unexplained departure. There is a legal distinction that Congress enacted that Plaintiffs fail to acknowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, the groups\u2019 claim that CMS failed to conduct proper rulemaking and accept public comments before launching the program also fails, the brief says, because it is \u201cnot a legislative rule but an optional component of voluntary participation agreements that has been implemented the same way CMMI has implemented every voluntary model for sixteen years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCMS has added, modified, and removed model components throughout CMMI\u2019s sixteen-year history,\u201d the government said. \u201cIt has never conducted notice-and-comment rulemaking for any voluntary model component.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Trevor N. McFadden late last month rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 request for a temporary restraining order<\/a> to halt the program from launching on April 1.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s motion to dismiss the case comes as the groups challenging the Medicare hemp program are seeking to add new plaintiffs to the case: cannabis-focused biopharmaceutical corporation MMJ International Holdings and its two subsidiaries, MMJ BioPharma Labs, Inc. and MMJ BioPharma Cultivation, Inc.<\/p>\n

While the federal health agencies don\u2019t oppose the expanded plaintiff pool, they do object in a separate filing to the prohibitionist groups\u2019 request to push back scheduled filing dates and a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction that is current scheduled for April 20. They also imply that SAM and the other anti-marijuana groups are seeking to add MMJ to the case in a \u201cfutile and misleading effort to cure\u201d their own lack of standing to bring the complaint.<\/p>\n

The government also says that MMJ itself \u201ccannot show irreparable harm\u201d from the Medicare hemp program.<\/p>\n

\u201cMMJ\u2019s claimed injuries\u2014decreased investor confidence, competitive disadvantage, impaired future earnings\u2014are speculative projections about a market MMJ has not entered (and will not enter for years), based on products MMJ has not developed, contingent on authorizations MMJ has not obtained,\u201d the federal brief says.<\/p>\n

Notably, the government\u2019s motion to dismiss says it was prepared in part by Matthew Zorn, a lawyer for HHS who before taking on the federal job led numerous cases suing government agencies on behalf of plaintiffs seeking marijuana and drug policy reform<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The CMS initiative comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in December calling on the attorney general to finalize a rule federally rescheduling marijuana that also contained components to \u201cimprove access\u201d to full-spectrum CBD products.<\/p>\n

Under the program, inhalable preparations are not allowed, and products can contain no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight and can have up to 3 milligrams of total THC per serving.<\/p>\n

The THC limit could potentially change if a law the president signed late last year takes effect as scheduled this November. That policy would strictly limit the types of cannabis products that are currently permitted under the 2018 Farm Bill that Trump signed in his first term, expressly prohibiting hemp derivatives containing more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container.<\/p>\n

The federal agencies note in their new brief that \u201cCMS does not pay for hemp products under the BEI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe participating provider furnishes eligible products at its own cost, subject to the $500 annual cap per beneficiary. The BEI operates within the shared-savings framework that defines the underlying models. If a provider\u2019s investment in beneficiary engagement reduces the beneficiary\u2019s total cost of care, the provider and CMS share in the resulting savings. If it does not, the provider absorbs the loss. No new federal appropriation is involved. No new entitlement is created. The BEI is, at its core, a decision by willing providers that a particular intervention can reduce downstream claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the White House Office of Management and Budget recently held a series of meetings about a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) CBD products enforcement policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FDA also issued guidance making clear that it does not intend to interfere with implementation of the Medicare hemp-derived products coverage plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CMS separately\u00a0finalized a rule that will allow coverage of some hemp products as specialized, non-primarily health-related benefits through Medicare Advantage<\/a> plans.<\/p>\n

Read recent filings<\/a> in the Medicare hemp program lawsuit below:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Marijuana Moment is made possible with support from readers. If you rely on our cannabis advocacy journalism to stay informed, please consider a monthly Patreon pledge.<\/p>\n

\"Become<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal health officials are asking a court to dismiss marijuana legalization opponents\u2019 lawsuit challenging a new Trump administration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[831,97,252,253],"class_list":["post-583513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-featured","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}