Pubdate: Sun, 07 Feb 2016
Source: Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
Copyright: 2016 Lincoln Journal Star
Contact:  http://www.journalstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/561

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE...

The recent seizure of hundreds of pounds of marijuana in Lincoln, 
apparently harvested in states where it can be grown legally, raises 
the question of how long the country will tolerate the current 
patchwork of laws.

In one case deputies with the Lancaster County Sheriff's Deputies 
seized 1,517 pounds of pot worth an estimated $7.5 million. The 
marijuana was stuffed into 39 duffel bags in a rental RV traveling 
from Oregon, where marijuana can be grown legally, to Georgia.

In another case deputies discovered 515 pounds of marijuana in a 
pickup truck driven by a resident of Colorado. The pot, packaged in 
heat-sealed pound bags, had a resale value of $2.5 million, deputies estimated.

The cases are similar to others recounted in an Associated Press 
story last month that concluded that illegal drug traffickers were 
growing weed among the state-sanctioned marijuana operations and 
shipping it out of state. Marijuana purchased legally in Colorado 
also has been seized in states where it is banned.

The state of affairs prompts these observations:

- --When the Obama administration announced its hands-off approach to 
marijuana enforcement in states where it was legalized by voters, it 
added that it might reconsider if it appeared federal priorities were 
threatened. Listed specifically as a federal priority in a memo from 
Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole was "preventing the diversion 
of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some 
form to other states." Willl the presidential election lead to a 
change in policy?

- --The lawsuit by the attorneys general for Nebraska and Oklahoma 
might bring the issue to a head. Earlier this year Nebraska Attorney 
General Doug Peterson and Oklahoma Attorney General urged the U.S. 
Supreme Court to do take the rare step of taking original 
jurisdiction and settling the dispute between states.

The attorneys general minced no words, accusing the state of Colorado 
of operating "a massive criminal enterprise" that exported thousands 
of pounds of marijuana to 36 states in 2014. "If this entity were 
based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it 
as a drug cartel," they said in a written argument.

- --The experiments with legal marijuana provide concrete data for the 
argument that states can benefit by moving marijuana operations into 
the above-ground economy. Colorado took in about $130 million in tax 
revenue last year. The State of Washington will haul in an estimated 
$60 million in the current fiscal year. Initiatives to legalize 
recreational marijuana in California may make to the ballot this 
year. Advocates say the revenue windfall there could be as high as $1 
billion a year. The state legislative analyst said legalization would 
save about $100 million by eliminating the cost of prosecuting 
marijuana charges.

So far efforts to legalize marijuana in one form or another in 
Nebraska have mustered little support. But pressure to resolve the 
difference between states will continue to build, as the piles of 
marijuana in police evidence get higher and higher.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom