Magistrate Maria-Elena James ruled that a cannabis dispensary in Oakland, CA, is free to stay open while local authorities fight federal prosecution to shut it down, reports Reuters. The ruling came in on July 3rd, just under the wire for local supporters of the Harborside Health Center to celebrate their temporary medical marijuana freedom on the Fourth of July. This long-standing court case between California and the US government is currently in an appeals stage, whereby the local government is contesting Magistrate James’s February decision that the city has no right to interfere in a federal prosecutor’s action to shut down or seize the property of the Oakland-based pot store. Currently in the US, marijuana is not an approved drug according to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), but rather an illegal narcotic. Still, the District of Columbia and 16 states have deemed cannabis to be legal if sold as a medicine prescribed by a doctor.

The medical world weighs in on marijuana Outside of politics, the medical community has waged its own debate over the last decade about the health merits of marijuana. The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR), which is run by the University of California, has been conducting scientific studies for several years. In one study involving effects of cannabis on pain from HIV-related peripheral neuropathy, the CMCR concluded that 52% of patients who smoked marijuana had over a 30% reduction in pain, compared to 24% in the placebo group. And in another study conducted by the CMCR and published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), researchers found that smoked cannabis significantly reduced symptoms and pain associated with multiple sclerosis spasticity.