March 21, 2016 09:25 AM UTC

SCOTUS Rejects Nanny Flatlander Weed Lawsuit

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Los Angeles Times reports today, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the suit brought by the states of Nebraska and Oklahoma challenging Colorado’s legalization of marijuana for recreational use and sale:

By a 6-2 vote, the justices turned away a lawsuit brought by Nebraska and Oklahoma, whose state attorneys complained that illegal marijuana was pouring into their states as a result of Colorado’s liberalized laws.

“The state of Colorado authorizes, oversees, protects and profits from a sprawling $100-million-per-month marijuana growing, processing and retailing organization that exported thousands of pounds of marijuana to some 36 states in 2014,” they said. “If this entity were based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it as a drug cartel.”

They argued that Colorado’s law violates the federal Controlled Substances Act, which treats marijuana as a dangerous drug and forbids its sale or use. They urged the Supreme Court to take up the issue as an “original” matter and declare that Colorado’s law was preempted by the federal drug laws.

Puritanical attorneys general in these conservative neighboring states will fume, but even Colorado’s former GOP Attorney General John Suthers, certainly no proponent of marijuana legalization, argued that the case from Nebraska and Oklahoma was weak, and the Obama administration urged the case be rejected. Many other conservative states unlikely to legalize marijuana now or in the future nonetheless declined to join.

With today’s decision, Colorado’s burgeoning marijuana industry is safe to flourish once again. And if Nebraska and Oklahoma want to press the matter, we could always strike up a conversation about their meth labs.