WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an unusual lawsuit challenging Colorado's legalization of recreational marijuana.
"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," two neighboring states, Nebraska and Oklahoma, told the court. "If this entity were based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it as a drug cartel."
The two states sought to use a rare procedure to attack the law, asking the justices to allow them to file a lawsuit directly in the Supreme Court. The Constitution gives the court such "original jurisdiction" to hear disputes between states, but the court uses it sparingly, most often to adjudicate boundary disputes or water rights.
In 2012, Colorado voters amended the state's Constitution to allow recreational use of marijuana and to regulate its sale and distribution. Nebraska and Oklahoma did not challenge the law's decriminalization of the drug's possession and use, but said other parts of the law were at odds with federal law and had vast spillover effects, taxing neighboring states' criminal justice systems and hurting the health of their residents.
Colorado told the justices that its neighbors were pursuing a curious and counterproductive strategy in the case, Nebraska v. Colorado, No. 144.
"Nebraska and Oklahoma concede that Colorado has power to legalize the cultivation and use of marijuana — a substance that for decades has seen enormous demand and has, until recently, been supplied exclusively through a multi-billion-dollar black market," Colorado's brief said. "Yet the plaintiff states seek to strike down the laws and regulations that are designed to channel demand away from this black market and into a licensed and closely monitored retail system."
Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the federal government's top appellate lawyer, urged the justices to refuse to hear the case.
"Nebraska and Oklahoma essentially contend," he wrote, "that Colorado's authorization of licensed intrastate marijuana production and distribution increases the likelihood that third parties will commit criminal offenses in Nebraska and Oklahoma by bringing marijuana purchased from licensed entities in Colorado into those states. But they do not allege that Colorado has directed or authorized any individual to transport marijuana into their territories in violation of their laws."
Both Verrilli and Colorado officials added that Nebraska and Oklahoma could pursue their objections in a more conventional suit, filed in a federal trial court.
The Supreme Court did not explain why it declined to hear the case. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented, saying the court was required to hear it.