Toking in Front of the White House? It"s for a Cause

Willie Nelson says he smoked a joint on the roof of the White House. Snoop Dogg claims he toked in a bathroom not far from the Oval Office.

Protestors pushing for real legalization in Washington, D.C., didn’t get quite that far in April, but they did show up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to spark up and make a point: It is taking far too long for the Obama administration to let the voters’ will take effect.

District voters legalized marijuana in 2014, and it’s safe to possess and use small amounts in the city. But nary a pot shop has opened, and protestors feel Obama is largely to blame.

The burn-out, scheduled for April 2, was put together as a way to make the city’s frustration clear. Participants planned to show up, light up, and get themselves arrested in front of the White House.

And they planned to come in style. In the days before the rally, artist Adam Eidinger was building a 51-foot inflatable joint to bring to the park across the street from the president’s residence. Eidinger hoped to put a fan inside it to blow cannabis smoke across the crowd. If that fails, he said, protesters could simply step inside the balloon, fill it with smoke, and seal it up.

Pressuring Obama and Congress to act

Eidinger is head of the D.C. Cannabis Campaign, and his goal is to pressure Obama and Congress into removing the final obstacles that make full legalization impossible in the District. Protesters also hope to take a subtle dig at D.C.’s lack of statehood.

In a broader sense, Eidinger said, he wants to make a point about the 5 million cannabis arrests that have occurred since Obama took office. And he wants the president to remove the drug from schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act – a list that includes dangerous drugs such as heroin and synthetic THC.

“Obama, he smokes, maybe not now, but he did smoke,” Eidinger said. “So for him to oversee an enforcement regime that has arrested 5 million people for marijuana . . . I’m very motivated because I think it’s a discriminatory practice.”

Eidinger, like many of the protesters, backs Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. Sanders favors full legalization, while front-runner Hillary Clinton says the country needs more time. But if Clinton wins, as expected, action by Obama now could give her political cover to do the right thing, Eidinger said.

“If Obama really wants to help Hillary, he’ll do this,” Eidinger said. “Because people like me, who are strong Bernie supporters, we would feel more comfortable supporting the Democratic candidate if this is underway.”

Eidinger’s protest did not draw support from major marijuana lobbying groups

Artists Chris Ridler and Cesar Maxit put up a 51-foot inflatable marijuana joint for the protest in front of the White House

Eidinger’s protest drew plenty of attention, but not the support of national pro-pot lobbying groups.

“We’re not involved, and we don’t think that consuming marijuana on federal property is an appropriate way to promote reform,” said Kaitlyn Boecker, spokeswoman for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Tom Angell, head of the Marijuana Majority, agreed.

“Smoking marijuana outside the president’s house, around tourists and kids, is probably not a good way to get the president to do what you want,” Angell said.

—

Post a comment and let us know: Was it a smart idea to toke outside the White House? Could this sort of protest backfire and hurt the cause?

Toking in Front of the White House? It"s for a Cause

Whoopi Recommends Weed for Women

Whoopi Goldberg, who is widely known to be both a woman and a weed smoker, is bringing the two together in a new marijuana venture.

Goldberg told Vanity Fair in March that she plans to start a medicinal cannabis business to help treat female medical concerns – including menstrual cramps. The Oscar-winning actress said she would team with Maya Elisabeth, one of the biggest names in the MMJ industry.

The new company will go by the name Maya & Whoopi and will provide a range of marijuana products for medical use, including edibles, topicals, tinctures, and even a bath soak described as “profoundly relaxing.” That may be Maya & Whoopi’s biggest selling point for women who experience painful cramps.

Goldberg told reporters the idea is to give women access to discreet, mostly non-intoxicating marijuana products that relieve cramps and other physical ailments without causing couch lock.

Filling a void in the market

“For me, I feel like if you don’t want to get high high, this is a product specifically just to get rid of discomfort,” she said. “Smoking a joint is fine, but most people can’t smoke a joint and go to work. This, you can put it in your purse. You can put the rub on your lower stomach and lower back at work, and then when you get home you can get in the tub for a soak or make tea, and it allows you to continue to work throughout the day.”

Goldberg is no stranger to cannabis, either the medical or the recreational sort. She’s talked at length about her love of vaping, which she uses to treat glaucoma and the headaches it causes. As a result, she said, she doesn’t rely on the kind of over-the-counter pain pills that can cause organ damage.

“I started using the vape pen because I stopped smoking cigarettes about four years ago and discovered I couldn’t smoke a joint anymore,” she said. “The relief that I got with the vape pen was kind of different from what I got with smoking. I could control it much better.”

But she decided something was missing from the picture, especially for fellow women. If marijuana could relieve headaches, why not cramps? So she went looking for products that could meet this need – and found nothing.

No shortage of demand

“Hey, this niche is half the population on the earth,” Goldberg said. “This seems to be people flippantly blowing you off, which is what you get whenever you start talking about cramps. They weren’t thinking, how do you target this? I have grown granddaughters who have severe cramps, so I said this is what I want to work on.”

That’s when she reached out to Elisabeth, who runs a Northern California MMJ company called Om Edibles. It quickly became clear they could tap into a massive, unserved market.

There is plenty of precedent for marijuana as a salve to fight menstrual cramps. Queen Victoria famously used the drug to treat her severe pain and discomfort during the 19th century. And now, as then, Goldberg promised, there will be no mystery about what women are taking: Every ingredient will be natural and plainly labeled.

—

Tell us: Is marijuana a good way to treat menstrual cramps? What other types of pain and discomfort do you think it could help?

Whoopi Recommends Weed for Women

Will Obama Reschedule Marijuana on His Way Out?

Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson made a bold prediction in late March, saying he thinks President Barack Obama will reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act on his way out of office.

Currently, cannabis is listed as a “schedule 1” substance under the 1970 law. That means the government considers it among the most dangerous, addictive, and medically useless drugs on the black market – along with heroin, LSD, and synthetic THC.

It is no such thing, and legalization proponents have been saying as much for decades. But they have made little headway with the federal government. Johnson says he thinks that will change just before Obama leaves the White House in January.

“It’s going to be just like alcohol,” Johnson told the conservative Washington Times. “I’m going to predict that Obama, when he leaves office, is going to deschedule marijuana as a class 1 narcotic. I wish he would have done that to this point, but I think he’s going to do that going out the door. That’s a positive.”

If Johnson’s claim holds up, it would be a hugely surprising development. Obama and his administration have repeatedly refused to consider rescheduling the drug, a move that would open up avenues to serious research and even legalization at the federal level.

Obama has shown little intention to reschedule marijuana

The president said earlier this year that he had no plans to tackle any new marijuana reform issues before his departure. And he has long been hesitant to direct the DEA to reschedule cannabis.

Under federal law, only Congress and the DEA can move marijuana to a lower, more lenient schedule. Lawmakers have balked, and there is zero chance the anti-drug agency will act on its own. Obama could order the attorney general to order the DEA to reclassify cannabis, but he has shown no signs of willingness to do that.

If he doesn’t, rescheduling would have to wait for the next president. Both Democratic candidates, front-runner Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have said they support the idea. Sanders has gone even further, saying marijuana should be removed from the schedules altogether so it could be legalized by Congress.

Johnson said he also favors that approach. Among other things, it would remove any threat of federal retaliation against states that legalize under their own laws, he said.

But Obama has all but ruled out any action to reschedule, let alone remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act altogether. That decision, he said, should be left to Congress.

Obama: Rescheduling is a job for Congress

“What is and isn’t a schedule 1 narcotic is a job for Congress,” the president said in 2014. “It’s not something by ourselves that we start changing. No, there are laws undergirding those determinations.”

Reformers, though, say that’s not quite true. Obama could act unilaterally, without input from lawmakers, said Tom Angell, head of the Marijuana Majority. That, Angell said, is what the president should do in his final months in office.

“It’s tough to predict what the president will do on this issue before he leaves office,” Angell said. “But if he’s willing to uphold his pledge to set policy based on science, and he listens to the majority of Americans who support marijuana reform, he will exercise his administrative authority for rescheduling.”

Federal cannabis legalization would still leave states with room to make their own decisions, Johnson said. He predicted the country would ultimately have a few places where marijuana remains illegal, similar to the handful of “dry counties,” mostly in the South, where alcohol sales are still banned.

“I think every municipality has to realize that all the planes to Denver every single weekend are filled up, and that they’re missing out, and Colorado is absolutely vibrant,” he said. “Is it due to marijuana? I think it’s a contributing factor. I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve been to Colorado, but I think you can sense vibrancy, and it’s there.”

Will Obama Reschedule Marijuana on His Way Out?

Cops: Teacher Let Kids Smoke Marijuana in Class

Kids love marijuana. It’s a known fact. That’s the main reason parents, teachers, and other authority figures try to keep it out of their hands. Not only is it illegal for a minor to use the drug, anywhere, but there is some evidence it could hurt them.

Try telling that to Domonic Anthony Leuzzi, a teacher who allegedly looked the other way while his students smoked up in class. Leuzzi, a 23-year-old resident of Glen Allen, Va., was fired and charged with three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The toking allegedly happened in a classroom at an alternative school in Henrico, Va. The incident was reported in early March, and a police investigation led to Leuzzi’s arrest and the criminal charges.

The incident happened at the Academy at Virgina Randolph, a school designed to teach troubled and at-risk students, including many with histories of drug and alcohol abuse. It was unclear how the students got the marijuana, whether they brought it to school themselves or obtained it from Leuzzi.

Leuzzi fired by local school district

A school spokesman said Leuzzi was no longer working for the local school district. He didn’t say when Leuzzi was fired, or when or how the incident came to the attention of administrators.

Of course, students have been smoking marijuana in school since the invention of marijuana and schools. But it’s rare for a teacher to become involved. More often, the problem goes the other way.

Last year, an 18-year-old student in Michigan was charged with several felonies after intentionally dosing a teacher with cannabis. The teacher unwittingly ate a cookie laced with THC, police said, was hospitalized for an overdose, and spent five days recuperating before returning to class.

It’s also not uncommon for schoolchildren to share marijuana and get busted.

In 2014, a 7th grader in California was charged with drug crimes after he allegedly sold several cannabis brownies to fellow students at their school. The student said the brownies came from his older brother, a medical marijuana patient. The treats sent one student to the hospital with a THC overdose.

Also in 2014 in California, three young children – 3rd graders – were caught smoking pot in a school bathroom. They faced disciplinary sanctions and are still among the youngest people busted for marijuana. They were so young they apparently didn’t even know how to burn the drug and smoke it. They brought a pipe into the bathroom but had too little cannabis to get high and couldn’t manage to light it before they were caught.

Leuzzi’s alleged offense is much worse. That’s especially true since it happened at an alternative school among students who were likely dealing with addictions or other substance abuse problems.

—

Post a comment below: What punishment should a teacher get for letting students smoke marijuana in class?

Cops: Teacher Let Kids Smoke Marijuana in Class

Is "Big Marijuana" On Its Way?

Legal marijuana has always carried the promise of economic vitality, of business booms and massive investments and overflowing tax coffers. And with that promise have come fears of the corporatization of “Big Marijuana.”

Those fears are coming to the surface again, as Washington, Oregon, and Colorado prepare to open their legal cannabis industries to out-of-state investors. The move could bring untold riches to these states, but also a corporate element many in the industry oppose.

These worries started almost immediately after Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize cannabis for recreation, in 2012. At a press conference in 2013, former Mexican President Vicente Fox and businessman Jamen Shivley described plans to build a nationwide marijuana brand with huge economic prospects.

“Yes,” Fox said at the time, “we are Big Marijuana.”

Big Marijuana never happened. But it could soon, if under different management.

Officials in Washington moved in March to pass a rule that would let outside investors pour their money into pot shops and other corners of the marijuana industry there. A similar rule took effect in Oregon in February, while Colorado will likely enact one soon.

The new regulations will open the doors to massive corporate investments from across the United States. Many in an industry known for its mom-and-pop culture say this could end with something akin to Big Tobacco.

But Washington and the other states where cannabis is legal have other concerns. If California joins the crowd by legalizing in November, as expected, these states could lose a huge pool of investment. Moving now ensures financiers will enter local markets before California acts.

As of now, Washington requires that any marijuana investor set up residence in the state for at least six months before joining the industry. The new rule, set to take effect in June, would remove that mandate, said Brian Smith, spokesman for the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board.

The rule change won’t allow outside investors to hold an actual ownership stake in cannabis businesses. But the state Legislature could change that, too, as a bill currently before lawmakers would allow non-residents to own up to 49 percent of these companies.

There is concern, said Heather Wolf, an industry lawyer in Washington, that the new rule “will lead to the big business takeover of the marijuana market in Washington.” The same concern surfaced when the drug first went legal in 2013.

Fox and Shively were the public face of that worry. Shively, a former corporate strategy manager at Microsoft, famously predicted his marijuana plans would create more millionaires than the software giant. Fox wasn’t part of the endeavor but said he supported it as a front against the war on drugs.

But those plans quietly died, and the local industries in Washington and elsewhere were built with a decided small-business mentality. Many of those businesses are raking in money, but others are not. And that’s where outside investment comes in.

“There’s only so many people willing to invest in this risky and new industry,” said Colorado state Sen. Chris Holbert. “So allowing people from out of state to become investors in this business . . . seems like a good idea.”

Whether the plan ends in a corporate cannabis culture has yet to be seen. But one thing is guaranteed: a lot more money all around.

—

What do you think? Is it a good idea for states to allow outside marijuana investments? What can they do to prevent the threat of Big Marijuana?

Is "Big Marijuana" On Its Way?

Could Marijuana Save Mining Towns?

Not everyone in Colorado loves legal marijuana. The mountains and rural valleys of the Centennial State are littered with small towns that have rejected pot shops, cannabis farms, and all other aspects of the state’s experiment with legalization.

Hotchkiss, Colo.

Hotchkiss, Colo., is one of them – or at least, it used to be.

After Colorado legalized in 2012, leaders of this coal mining community in the Rocky Mountains voted twice to bar dispensaries. There are still none in town. But as the local economy collapses, that could change, according to a report in The New York Times.

Coal was once the lifeblood of Hotchkiss, but the industry has fallen to pieces. One mine has closed, another plans to seal its shafts soon, and the rest of the mining economy is mired in bankruptcies and work disruptions. The decline of coal in other parts of the country isn’t helping.

Hotchkiss’ economy is collapsing

City leaders and the local business community are getting desperate. Increasingly, they’re turning to talk of cannabis as a way out of their troubles.

“If we could get it legalized right now, we could create some jobs, and we need the tax revenue,” said Thomas Wills, a town trustee and used-book store owner. “Downtown’s not going to be all flashing green crosses and dancing marijuana leaves. You can make it as unobtrusive as you want.”

The issue is scheduled to come up for a vote in April, and if enough of the other trustees agree with Wills, Hotchkiss could finally take its share of a growing marijuana trade that has revitalized other parts of Colorado and the country.

As in California and other states where the drug is legal for any use (or nearly so), small towns in Colorado are exploring legal pot shops as a solution to their growing economic woes. Many of these communities initially banned the stores but are now giving them a second look.

“It’s an evolving discussion in a lot of communities,” said Kevin Bommer, deputy director of the Colorado Municipal League.

Other Colorado towns removing bans on cannabis businesses

Hotchkiss is far from alone in Colorado. Five other towns are set to decide in April whether to remove their bans. One has already done so, allowing wholesale cannabis farms.

Marijuana has been legal in Colorado since 2013. The first pot shops opened the next year. But the state is still a patchwork of conflicting laws, with some communities banning cannabis businesses and others allowing them.

Most of the legal shops are located in or near Denver, Boulder, and other big cities. Others dot popular ski resorts and tourist attractions. Stoners in the remaining parts of the state are left to drive long distances for their marijuana, and their communities are left without the massive tax revenue the industry brings.

Many towns banned marijuana retail stores out of fear

The many votes to ban retail stores sprang mostly from anxiety, fear, and misunderstanding. Local leaders worried legalization would bring crime, tank property values, damage community reputations, and encourage drug use by minors. Many of the laws were temporary moratoriums, but they signaled a desire to keep weed out, possibly forever.

“There were a lot of questions and unknowns,” said Buena Vista Mayor Joel Benson, whose small town is located in the mountains. “It was really just to give people time to wrestle with the ins and outs.”

Hotchkiss, like other towns, is reconsidering. Aside from the mines, there is little in the way of a permanent economy. Tourism is minimal and the area farms are too small to fuel a local rebound. Unemployment in Colorado is 3.2 percent; here in the Rockies, it’s 5.3 percent.

“People have been tightening the belt or just plain moving away,” said Robbie Winne, a Hotchkiss businesswoman. Marijuana, she said, could replace the lost jobs, or at least pump new money into the economy. And that could save Hotchkiss.

—

What do you think? Should small towns open their doors to legal marijuana? Why? And do you think it will happen?

Could Marijuana Save Mining Towns?

How Does Marijuana Move?

If you’ve ever bought marijuana on the black market, you may have asked yourself a question: How exactly did the stuff get to me?

The answer, naturally, is complicated. But as a general matter, shipping cannabis from one place to another – whether across the country or between cities – takes many forms. If there is a way to move something from one place to the next, it has been used to transport pot.

Still, some methods are more popular than others. Bringing marijuana across a national border is usually a major undertaking, while driving it 100 miles is easy and relatively safe. Like everyone, drug traffickers tend to take the path of least resistance.

Of course, not all cannabis moves any great distance. Anywhere you can find a large number of illicit users you can find a large number of covert growers. In other words, many people get their supply locally and don’t rely on transport methods at all.

Still, that doesn’t account for the vast majority of marijuana in America. California produces 62 percent of the nation’s supply, and that product has to move somehow. So here are three of the many ways we ship our second-favorite drug across country.

U.S. Mail

This may seem incredibly risky – after all, postal packages go through many hands before they reach their destinations, and some of those hands are likely to be the suspicious sort. The U.S. Postal Service employs an entire division of inspectors who do nothing but look for contraband in the mail.

Even so, they find almost none of it. The key point to remember is that many millions of letters and packages traverse the United States every day. That’s far, far too many to X-Ray or scan or put in front of drug dogs. Inspectors have their ways, but they catch very little.

The consequences of getting caught, however, tend to be unpleasant. Federal charges are always possible, and traffickers are known to make the kind of bone-headed mistakes that send pounds of marijuana to the wrong address. That’s an easy way to get busted.

Air Travel

Mail may seem risky, but shipping pot by airplane actually is risky. It’s not uncommon for dealers to fly to Colorado or Washington, buy some legal marijuana, and fly it home to sell on the street.

But they’re playing with their freedom. Federal airport security isn’t trained to catch drugs, but if they spot them, they’ll call the local police. That means an arrest in a strange state, local drug charges, and even possible federal trouble.

The real danger in this method is that it’s so easy to get caught: Everything you carry is run through a scan of some sort. But for what it’s worth, certain airport threats are oversold. Most police dogs you might see are trained to find explosives and guns, not weed.

By Freeway

As long as drivers obey traffic laws, this is usually the safest means to transport cannabis. Police simply don’t have the resources or the ESP needed to stop every trafficker on the road.

That said, dealers often have a tendency not to obey traffic laws. In that case, even a simple speeding ticket could turn into a major drug bust if the cops are in a skeptical mood.

In the end, whatever the method, the vast majority of marijuana makes it to its final destination, and from there to its many happy users. Law enforcement has very few realistic means to stop the constant flow of drugs, with one exception: confidential informants. Whenever you read of a big shipment stopped on its way, it’s almost certainly because someone with a grudge tipped off the cops.

How Does Marijuana Move?

Marijuana "God" Falls

The self-styled God of Marijuana dropped to Earth in a Washington, D.C.., courtroom in March.

Nicholas Cunningham, a 30-year-old cannabis entrepreneur who used luxury cars painted with pot leaves to sell the drug, pleaded guilty March 21 to two counts of selling marijuana to an undercover police officer.

Cunningham described himself as one of the “KUSH Gods” and sold cannabis, edibles, and other marijuana products out of his cars, according to the charges. But he says he was just giving the stuff away – and the recipients decided to make financial contributions to his cause.

Prosecutors didn’t buy it and convinced him to plead to the charges. Cunningham agreed but refused to apologize.

“I feel I have been a benefit and not a harm to this city,” he said in District Superior Court. “I did get ahead of myself in terms of the law.”

Cunningham received suspended sentence

Judge Ronda Reid-Winston sentenced Cunningham to six months in jail but suspended that sentence, ordering two years of probation instead.

Cunningham may actually have a good argument that he helped the District. Cannabis is legal there, but a Republican Congress has blocked local officials from licensing pot shops, meaning adults can have and use the drug but must buy it from illegal dealers like Cunningham. Selling marijuana is a crime, though it is legal to gift up to an ounce.

And that’s what Cunningham’s lawyer, Matthew Von Fricken, argued his client was doing. Von Fricken admitted Cunningham “may have been a little ahead of his time” with his approach to dealing.

But he said his client’s business was essentially the same as National Public Radio, where listeners donate of their own free will and get “gifts” in return. Federal prosecutors pounced on that argument, calling it ludicrous.

“He says he was accepting donations, which is an incredible assertion for anyone accepting $2,000 worth of donations,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Barker. “These were more than donations when the brownies cost $10.”

Defendant claimed marijuana was gifted

Cunningham sold pot without any kind of vendor’s license, Barker said, and he sold it to anyone who could pay, with no security measures to keep it out of the hands of children.

“This case is about a course of conduct over several months,” Barker said. “His actions were brazen, reckless and irresponsible.”

Prosecutors said Cunningham sold his marijuana between October and December 2015. He and his drivers prowled several neighborhoods and met customers using text messaging or a mobile app he developed.

He was eventually busted after he sold marijuana to a narcotics officer twice in December. Cunningham sold the officer two ounces for $400 in the first deal and a larger bag of cannabis for $2,000 in the second.

Cunningham wasn’t the only person dragged into court over his delivery service. Evonne Lidoff, 18, pleaded guilty in February to distributing marijuana; she was sentenced to six months of probation. Lidoff was the go-between who brought the cannabis from Cunningham to the narcotics officer.

The judge barred Cunningham from operating his company, told him to dismantle his app, and ordered him to refrain from selling any form of weed in the District. Cunningham was also instructed to paint over the marijuana leaves on three of his cars, which were in police custody.

—

Let us know below: Did Nicholas Cunningham get fair treatment in Washington, D.C..? Should District police look the other way, since marijuana possession is legal there?

Marijuana "God" Falls

Supreme Court Refuses Major Marijuana Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a lawsuit by officials in Nebraska and Oklahoma that sought to end marijuana legalization in Colorado.

The decision, issued in March by a 6-2 vote, is a major victory for the future of cannabis reform in America. The suit had threatened to close every pot shop in Colorado – and possibly other states where the drug is legal for recreation.

The case was strange from the start: Oklahoma and Nebraska filed their lawsuit against Colorado directly with the Supreme Court, skipping federal trial and appellate courts. The high court has “original jurisdiction” over such cases, a power that allows it to mitigate disputes between states without waiting for decisions in lower courts.

Experts predicted the lawsuit would fail

But the suit was handicapped from the start. The court rarely uses its original jurisdiction, especially in cases where one state seeks to dictate the policy of another. Experts predicted the suit would fail, even if the justices agreed to hear it.

It never got that far. And the court’s refusal to hear it essentially means this avenue of contesting legalization is cut off for other states. Legalization is safe in Colorado, at least until the November presidential election.

Nebraska and Oklahoma contended in the suit that cannabis purchased legally in Colorado was flowing across their borders in huge numbers – a claim refuted by all available statistics. The two states outrageously compared their neighbor to Mexican drug rings.

“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,” 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.”

Attempts to shutter Colorado’s retail market

The suit didn’t seek to end all legalization in the Rocky Mountain State; possession and use of small amounts would remain legal, but all commercial cultivation, processing, and sales would end.

Lawyers for Colorado pointed out that the suit made little sense and sought to interfere with the legally adopted policies of another sovereign state. The Supreme Court has consistently refused to let states dictate the laws of their neighbors.

“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,” the lawyers said in a legal brief. “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.”

The Obama administration, which usually takes a supportive but hands-off policy toward legalization at the state level, stepped in and asked the court to reject the case outright. U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. argued the lawsuit was improperly before the court.

“Nebraska and Oklahoma essentially contend 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,” Verrilli wrote. “But they do not allege that Colorado has directed or authorized any individual to transport marijuana into their territories in violation of their laws.”

Nebraska and Oklahoma still could refile the suit in a federal trial court, but after the high court’s ruling, that would be unlikely. As is typical with decisions not to hear cases, the court offered no explanation. Only the two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented.

—

Tell us: How important do you think this Supreme Court ruling is for the future of legalization? Comment below.

Supreme Court Refuses Major Marijuana Case