Pubdate: Fri, 06 Mar 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Authors: Kirk Mitchell and John Ingold

LEGAL STATUS CUFFS DEPTS.

Six Colorado Officers Contend Laws Permitting Marijuana Require Them 
to Violate Federal Law.

Six Colorado sheriffs Thursday sued their governor in federal court, 
arguing that state laws legalizing marijuana require them to violate 
federal law.

Joining the sheriffs in the lawsuit - the fourth to be filed against 
Colorado over marijuana legalization - are sheriffs and prosecutors 
from Nebraska and Kansas.

The lawsuit argues that federal law's supremacy means Colorado cannot 
allow people to possess or use marijuana for recreational purposes 
and cannot license stores to sell it. The lawsuit does not challenge 
Colorado's medical marijuana laws or stores.

"This suit is about one thing - the rule of law," Larimer County 
Sheriff Justin Smith said in a news release. "The Colorado 
Constitution mandates that all elected officials, including sheriffs, 
swear an oath of office to uphold both the United States as well as 
the Colorado Constitutions."

The lawsuit names Gov. John Hickenlooper as the lone defendant. 
Colorado's attorney general, Cynthia Coffman, will defend the state 
against the lawsuit, a spokeswoman for her said.

The lawsuit has the backing of national anti-legalization groups, and 
its nationwide ambitions were apparent in the choice of where to 
announce the suit. In a news conference Thursday morning at the 
National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Smith told reporters that 
Colorado's passage of Amendment 64 created "a constitutional 
showdown" in the state. The amendment, which voters approved in 2012, 
made it legal for people over 21 in Colorado to possess limited 
amounts of marijuana and for licensed stores to sell marijuana.

"We think that what Colorado has done is illegal; we think it's 
unconstitutional," Scotts Bluff County, Neb., Sheriff Mark Overman, a 
plaintiff in the lawsuit, said at the news conference. "I believe, my 
fellow plaintiffs believe that this case is going to have national 
ramifications. And, if we win, then we can reverse what looks like a 
surrender to the pro-marijuana crowd."

Use and possession

The lawsuit follows another legal challenge filed in December by 
Nebraska and Oklahoma, which asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike 
down the historymaking law. Two lawsuits filed earlier this year by 
the anti-legalization group Safe Streets Alliance on behalf of 
several Colorado residents are pending against the state over Amendment 64.

Similar to the previous lawsuits, the new suit seeks to close all of 
Colorado's recreational marijuana stores, but it also asks a federal 
judge to overturn Amendment 64's protections for marijuana use and possession.

The law enforcement officials' lawsuit claims that local officers are 
breaking federal law and international treaties when they find 
marijuana but don't seize it.

At Thursday's news conference, Yuma County Sheriff Chad Day said 
Colorado's marijuana laws prohibit officers from seizing marijuana in 
certain circumstances - putting officers, he said, in "an untenable position."

"By supporting and upholding one, we're violating the other," he 
said. "I'm excited to, at the very least, get an answer from the courts."

Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver, was skeptical 
of the sheriffs' argument. He said no law requires local officers to 
act as de facto federal drug agents.

"Of the four (lawsuits), this is the one with the least merit," Kamin 
said. "They have targeted not just the (marijuana store) regulation 
piece, but they're also essentially saying Colorado can't legalize 
marijuana. No one has ever gone that far."

Colorado plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit include Smith, Day, Elbert 
County Sheriff Shayne Heap, Hinsdale County Sheriff Ronald Bruce, 
Kiowa County Sheriff Casey Sheridan and Delta County Sheriff Frederick McKee.

Of the six Colorado sheriffs involved in the lawsuit, only Smith is 
from a county that approved Amendment 64, with 55 percent of 86,410 
voters approving the measure. The measure was approved in 33 of 64 
Colorado counties by a 55 percent majority.

Colorado officials have not responded to any of the pending lawsuits. 
Previously, state attorneys have argued that Colorado's more 
permissive marijuana laws do not amount to legalization of marijuana. 
Instead, they contend that marijuana remains illegal in Colorado, 
aside from the specific exemptions allowed under the medical and 
recreational marijuana laws.

Choices by voters

When Nebraska and Oklahoma filed their lawsuit against Colorado last 
year, then-Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement 
that "it appears the plaintiffs' primary grievance stems from 
non-enforcement of federal laws regarding marijuana, as opposed to 
choices made by the voters of Colorado."

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis said in a statement that the U. S. Department 
of Justice and President Barack Obama have made clear that they will 
not interfere with states whose citizens voted for recreational marijuana use.

"This lawsuit," Polis' statement says, "is a silly attempt to 
circumvent the will of Colorado voters and is a waste of time."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom