Matt Zorn is a lawyer that for the past 4 years have been at the bleeding edge of cannabis and drug policy litigation against the government. During this time he has:
litigated cases to end the 50-year NIDA monopoly, obtaining one of four Schedule I marijuana cultivation licenses for our client.
uncovered a secret DOJ memo;
got a smokable hemp ban struck down as unconstitutional in Texas; and
got a federal judge to note that “in an appropriate case, the Drug Enforcement Administration may well be obliged to initiate a reclassification proceeding for marijuana, given the strength of” our arguments.
With Shane Pennington, he has been recognized for this work in the pages of national media, such as NBC, Rolling Stone, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR. And we’ve done other things too, including other lawsuits against DEA, such as the Right to Try case that we helped brief and Matt argued. Behind the scenes, we counsel businesses and researchers on the ins-and-outs of federal and state drug law. You can read more about each us and why we do this below the line.
About Matt
Like many, my path into this space is a mix of personal tragedy, healing, and dumb luck.
Few courses at Columbia Law School held my attention during my tenure there as a law student between 2010 and 2012. A seminar entitled Drugs, Law, and Policy was a rare exception. I soaked up the reading that spanned from the inequities of drug prohibition to the deeper regulatory issues—and went beyond—plunging myself into the history, literature, and research. And I developed theories and arguments as to how, why, and where drug law went wrong and what could be done to fix it.
But I didn’t use my newly minted license to enter the field post-graduation. I studied for the New York bar exam, took a post-bar trip to the Amazon, and upon return, became a young litigator at a pre-eminent New York commercial law firm, aggressively chipping away at my six-figure law student debt. Less than one year into my career, I transitioned to IP litigation, which is still a major focus of my practice today.
A few months after that, the person I was dating had a recurrence of a childhood bone cancer. After 2½ years together, 18 months living together, and a hospital bedside wedding, she passed away in June 2015 when I was 28. Suffice to say, through that harrowing experience, I witnessed first-hand the need to develop not just new medicines for pain, trauma, and all sorts of other conditions—but to bust paradigms that too often favors opiates and antidepressants over more promising drugs and other substances. And from my days as a law student, I knew how current federal drug laws impeded that progression.
But I still didn’t enter a career in drug law. After a half-year more at my New York firm, in Spring 2016 I moved to Marshall, TX to clerk on the busiest patent docket in the land. And thereafter, I still didn’t enter a career in drug law. I remained in Texas and began practicing commercial litigation and intellectual property at the boutique law firm Yetter Coleman LLP.
My path to litigating drug policy issues of national import came two years later in March 2019 at SXSW in Austin. There, I met Dr. Sue Sisley, the president and founder of Scottsdale Research Institute, who gave a presentation as part of the first-year “cannabusiness” track. She described her struggles to do FDA clinical trials with real-world cannabis. Doing everything by the book, in 2016, she had use moldy cannabis provided by the University of Mississippi for her clinical trials investigating cannabis to treat vets with PTSD. Dr. Sisley then applied for her own license to cultivate marijuana in 2017, but DEA refused to process her application to cultivate marijuana. This was bureaucracy run by ideologues at its worst. So, at the end of the presentation, I offered to see if I could represent Dr. Sisley pro bono in a lawsuit to get her application processed.
From there, I consulted with my colleague Shane Pennington—an administrative law whiz—who at that time had no experience with drug policy litigation. Together, we saw a viable claim, took the case pro bono, and scored the first of several victories on behalf of SRI. Ultimately, after 2 years of assisting Dr. Sisley, Scottsdale Research Institute got the license she had applied for.
Since thrusting myself into cannabis/psychedelic space, I have encountered dynamic and passionate lawyers; novel and complex legal issues; and industry folks committed to bringing innovative and truly effective therapies and healing to those that most in need. And so, the work must continue.
