{"id":115735,"date":"2014-12-22T20:29:40","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T03:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/2-states-sue-colorado-over-legal-marijuana\/"},"modified":"2014-12-22T20:29:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T03:29:40","slug":"2-states-sue-colorado-over-legal-marijuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/2-states-sue-colorado-over-legal-marijuana\/","title":{"rendered":"2 states sue Colorado over legal marijuana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"People
People celebrated Amendment 64\u2019s passage in 2012. Attorneys general for Nebraska and Oklahoma have filed a case with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to declare marijuana legalization in Colorado illegal.<\/span>Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Attorneys general for Oklahoma and Nebraska filed a U.S. Supreme Court case Thursday seeking to overturn Colorado\u2019s marijuana legalization.<\/p>\n

The case comes as neighboring states have become increasingly concerned with marijuana leaving Colorado and entering their borders.<\/p>\n

The crux of the case rests on the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which essentially states supremacy of federal law over state law.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit points out that \u201cthe federal government has preeminent authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, including commerce involving legal and illegal trafficking in drugs such as marijuana.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution and the federal anti-drug laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local pro-drug policies and licensed distribution schemes throughout the country which conflict with federal laws,\u201d the complaint states.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the neighboring states also raise concerns over a lack of regulation in Colorado\u2019s voter-approved marijuana law to ensure that cannabis products don\u2019t leave the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal law undisputedly prohibits the production and sale of marijuana,\u201d Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said in a statement after joining Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt in filing the lawsuit. \u201cColorado has undermined the United States Constitution, and I hope the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold our constitutional principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican who has long opposed marijuana legalization, said he will aggressively defend Colorado against the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears the plaintiffs\u2019 primary grievance stems from non-enforcement of federal laws regarding marijuana, as opposed to choices made by the voters of Colorado,\u201d Suthers said. \u201cWe believe this suit is without merit, and we will vigorously defend against it in the U.S. Supreme Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Suthers added that he is not surprised to see the case because \u201cneighboring states have expressed concern about Colorado-grown marijuana coming into their states.\u201d<\/p>\n

Announcement of the case caused marijuana legalization supporters to attack the attorneys general in Oklahoma and Nebraska.<\/p>\n

Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project and a lead proponent of Amendment 64, pointed to reports of Bruning, a Republican, receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the beer, wine and liquor industry.<\/p>\n

The Nebraska Democratic Party criticized Bruning for pushing deals for the alcohol industry, including taxing sweetened malt beverages \u2013 like Mike\u2019s Hard Lemonade \u2013 as beer rather than liquor because beer is taxed at a much lower rate.<\/p>\n

Nebraska Democrats said Bruning was not working to keep children safe since sweetened malt beverages often appeal to children.<\/p>\n

A large concern surrounding marijuana legalization is the affect on children. But a national survey released Tuesday by the University of Michigan found that teen marijuana use is down nationally, despite legalization.<\/p>\n

Teen use is down by about 2 points in Colorado, according to another survey released by state health officials in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are on the wrong side of history. They will be remembered similarly to how we think of state officials who fought to maintain alcohol prohibition years after other states ended it,\u201d said Tvert, who has always maintained that marijuana should be regulated similar to alcohol.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttorney General Bruning is demonizing the adult use of marijuana, but clearly has no problem with adults using a far more harmful substance like alcohol,\u201d Tvert said. \u201cHe might be happy living in an alcohol-only state, but here in Colorado, we believe adults should be able to make the safer choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nebraska, Oklahoma file in U.S. high court<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[13,135],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-marijuana"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115735"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}