Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold

HIGH COURT MAY TAKE POT CASE

Nebraska and Oklahoma Are Asking U. S. Justices to Overturn Legalization.

The U. S. Supreme Court may be nearing a decision on whether to hear 
a case brought against Colorado by two neighboring states over 
marijuana legalization.

Supreme Court justices were scheduled to meet privately Friday to 
discuss the case, which was filed in 2014 by the attorneys general in 
Nebraska and Oklahoma.

The justices won't have decided at the meeting whether to upend 
legalization in Colorado, as the lawsuit requests. Instead, the 
justices must decide first whether even to take up the case.

Their decision could be announced as early as Monday. But Sam Kamin, 
a professor at the University of Denver who specializes in marijuana 
law and who has followed the lawsuit closely, said there are no 
guarantees the justices even got around to talking about the case 
Friday. The court twice before had scheduled to discuss the case at 
conferences, only for the discussion to be pushed back.

"We just don't know what's going on behind the scenes," Kamin said.

In the lawsuit, Nebraska and Oklahoma ask the Supreme Court to 
overturn Colorado's system for licensing marijuana businesses, which 
was part of the state's 2012 initiative that legalized cannabis. The 
neighboring states argue the commercialization allowed in state law 
impermissibly conflicts with federal law, and they say marijuana 
flowing across Colorado's borders has created a burden for them.

Colorado officials defended the law's legality - saying it doesn't 
negate the federal government's ability to criminalize pot. The Obama 
administration also urged the Supreme Court not to take the case.

Because the case involves a dispute between states, the lawsuit was 
filed directly to the Supreme Court. Four justices must vote in favor 
of hearing the case for the court to take it. If that happens, it 
starts a likely years-long process of filings and arguments before a 
final decision is reached.

Kamin said it is unclear what impact the death of Justice Antonin 
Scalia will have on the case. At a speech in Boulder a couple of 
months before the suit was filed, Scalia seemed to support its 
general argument.

"The Constitution contains something called the Supremacy Clause," he 
said about marijuana, referencing the provision that says federal law 
tops state law when the two are in direct conflict.

Kamin said the Supreme Court may shy away from taking big cases while 
operating with only eight justices.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom