{"id":5740,"date":"2016-03-22T08:31:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T08:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/?p=47566"},"modified":"2016-03-22T08:31:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T08:31:15","slug":"supreme-court-dismisses-colorado-marijuana-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/supreme-court-dismisses-colorado-marijuana-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Dismisses Colorado Marijuana Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/supreme-court-dismisses-colorado-marijuana-case\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>The United States Supreme Court on Monday dismissed\u00a0a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2016\/03\/supreme-court-will-discuss-marijuana-case-on-friday\/\">case<\/a>\u00a0against Colorado that could have dealt a devastating blow to legal marijuana laws in a growing number of states.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit, which Nebraska and Oklahoma filed in late 2014,\u00a0compared marijuana coming over their borders from Colorado to pollution. They said\u00a0that as a result, their law enforcement agencies, courts and jails are being unduly overburdened.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, filed a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/15pdf\/144orig_6479.pdf\">written dissent<\/a> against the Court&#8217;s refusal to hear the case, writing, &#8220;If this Court does not exercise jurisdiction over a controversy between two States, then the complaining State has no judicial forum in which to seek relief.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The support of four justices was\u00a0needed for the case to move forward. It has been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2016\/02\/how-will-scalias-death-affect-marijuana-case-at-supreme-court\/\">widely speculated<\/a> that the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia likely left\u00a0the plaintiffs with one fewer vote than they otherwise would have had.<\/p>\n<p>It is possible that one additional justice joined Thomas and Alito in wanting to take up the case without signing their written dissent, but discussions and votes on granting review take place behind closed doors and are generally publicly unknown until years or decades later, when justices die or retire and their papers are made available to scholars.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/Search.aspx?FileName=\/docketfiles\/22o144.htm\">case docket<\/a>, the justices were scheduled to discuss the case behind closed doors on four occasions in the past two months, most recently on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling was met with relief and celebration from organizations focused on\u00a0ending cannabis prohibition.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">\u201cThis was a meritless lawsuit, and the court made the right decision,&#8221; Mason Tvert, communications director for the <a href=\"http:\/\/mpp.org\">Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>, said in a statement. &#8220;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. Colorado has done more to control marijuana than just about any other state in the nation. It will continue to set an example for other states that are considering similar laws in legislatures and at the ballot box.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Tamar Todd of the <a href=\"http:\/\/drugpolicy.org\">Drug Policy Alliance<\/a> called the decision &#8220;excellent news\u00a0for the many other states looking to adopt similar reforms in 2016 and beyond.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Had the Court decided to take up the case, it could have cast a dark shadow on efforts to enact legalization in additional states this year through ballot measures and state legislation.<\/p>\n<p>While marijuana reform advocates and industry players are breathing a sigh of relief for now, Nebraska and Oklahoma are weighing their options, including refiling the case in a lower federal court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, the Supreme Court has not held that Colorado\u2019s unconstitutional facilitation of marijuana industrialization is legal, and the Court\u2019s decision does not bar additional challenges to Colorado\u2019s scheme in federal district court,&#8221;\u00a0<span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said in a <\/span><a style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"https:\/\/ago.nebraska.gov\/media\/news\/view\/97590\/attorney-general%E2%80%99s-response-to-scotus-denial\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, an opponent of legalization, nonetheless cheered the Court&#8217;s action in letting her state&#8217;s law stand unimpeded for now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m proud of the legal team in my office that successfully defended this complicated case. I continue to believe that this lawsuit was not the way to properly address the challenges posed by legalized marijuana,&#8221; she said in a <a href=\"http:\/\/coag.gov\/press-room\/press-releases\/03-21-16\">statement<\/a>. &#8220;But the problems are not going away. Although we\u2019ve had victories in several federal lawsuits over the last month, the legal questions surrounding Amendment 64 still require stronger leadership from Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">The Obama administration, in a brief filed in December by Solicitor General\u00a0Donald Verrilli Jr., urged the Court to decline the case, while nine former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration urged the Court to hear it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Supreme Court on Monday dismissed\u00a0a case\u00a0against Colorado that could have dealt a devastating blow to legal marijuana laws in a growing number of states. The lawsuit, which Nebraska and Oklahoma filed in late 2014,\u00a0compared marijuana coming over their borders from Colorado to pollution. They said\u00a0that as a result, their law enforcement agencies, [&#8230;] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2417,9,1,3],"tags":[2419],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}