Supreme Court rejects states’ challenge to Colorado pot law

The lawsuit was filed under the court’s “original jurisdiction”, in which the high court justices consider disputes between states that are not first heard by lower courts.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined Thomas in dissenting. The two states contended that the spillover is overburdening local law enforcement, and sought to do away with the regulatory system Colorado has created to tax and control recreational pot sales.

But Colorado said its neighboring states real quarrel is with the federal government’s policy of declining to prosecute cases of simple possession in states where marijuana use has been legalized. Even if Nebraska and Oklahoma were to win the lawsuit, they would most likely only exacerbate the flow of marijuana across state borders as pulling a regulated system out from under marijuana growers could lead to them seeking new markets in other states. “We should let this complaint proceed further rather than denying leave without so much as a word of explanation”.

“States have every right to regulate the cultivation and sale of marijuana, just as Nebraska and Oklahoma have the right to maintain their failed prohibition policies”, said Tvert, who’s based in Denver – and who helped lead his state’s marijuana voter initiative.

The legal basis for the lawsuit has been questionable from the beginning, with legal commentators both challenging its merits and pointing out the irony in two of America’s “reddest” states taking a legal posture that overruns state sovereignty in favor of federal power.

Reacting to today’s news, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said he’s disappointed.

The justices did not comment Monday in dismissing the lawsuit the states filed directly at the Supreme Court against their neighbor. Those states should take their fight up with the federal government, not Colorado, the state said.

Tom Angell, spokesperson for marijuana-legalization organization Marijuana Majority, praised the Court’s decision. This case, if it went forward and the Court ruled the wrong way, had the potential to roll back numerous gains our movement has achieved to date.

The justices had asked the Obama administration to weigh in, and the Justice Department responded by urging the court to stay out of the case. Other states are looking to what Colorado has accomplished: the drops in racially disparate arrests, the criminal justice dollars saved, and the tax revenue raised and want to adopt similar marijuana law reforms.