Pubdate: Thu, 21 Jan 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Ricardo Baca

DEFENDANTS PARED IN POT LAWSUIT

The Governor and Other State and Pueblo County Officials Have Been 
Removed From the Case.

A federal judge this week removed the governor and other state and 
Pueblo County officials as defendants in a high-profile racketeering 
lawsuit that is attempting to stop legal marijuana in Colorado. 
Pueblo County horse ranchers Hope and Michael Reilly and Washington, 
D.C., anti-drug group Safe Streets Alliance, sued to stop 
construction of Rocky Mountain Organics' cannabis cultivation 
facility, claiming that federal pot laws supercede Colorado's pot 
laws and alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt 
Organizations Act.

The case, known as the "horse ranchers' lawsuit," named the grow, 
businesses that work with it, Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Pueblo 
County Commission, the head of the state Department of Revenue and 
other officials and agencies as defendants.

But U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn on Tuesday issued a 
written order siding with previous federal court rulings saying that 
government entities are not subject to RICO claims and "that there is 
no private right-of-action under the (U.S. Constitution) Supremacy Clause."

Brian Barnes, a lawyer for Safe Streets and the Reillys, said the 
case will proceed against the other named defendants, including the 
Black Hawk pot shop Rocky Mountain Organics, which grows its cannabis 
in Pueblo County. He also is contemplating an appeal.

"But we haven't made any final decisions about how we're going to 
proceed," he said.

Pueblo County spokeswoman Paris Carmichael said the county has spent 
more than $100,000 on the case.

"It's pretty clear it was a frivolous lawsuit being pushed by an 
ideological agenda, and the net result is it costing Pueblo County 
taxpayers time and money to fight it," Pueblo County commissioner Sal 
Pace said. "The folks who would have liked to see them succeed would 
have been the black market drug cartels, since they're the biggest 
losers under decriminalization and legalization in Colorado."

Attorney Matthew Buck, who represents Rocky Mountain Organics and 
some other remaining defendants, said the ruling Tuesday "likely 
signals where the court is going to go in our RICO action - I believe 
all of the cases will be dismissed when they get around to it."

The court addresses cases in order of importance, he said, which is 
likely why Blackburn ruled on the state and county issues before 
those involving private parties.

"RICO was designed to allow (the government) to go after the mafia in 
civil court - not for out-of-state special interest groups to go 
after local businesses for complying with Colorado law," Buck said.

Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, who represented Hickenlooper and 
other state officials in the case, said Wednesday she will continue 
to defend the Colorado law that legalized the recreational use and 
possession of marijuana.

"I continue to believe these cases lack merit and are not the way to 
fix America's marijuana policy; a policy which continues to raise 
significant challenges for our state and legitimate concerns by our 
neighbor states," Coffman said in an e-mailed statement.

She was referring to the next big legal challenge to Colorado's pot 
laws, a case filed by Nebraska and Oklahoma asking the U.S. Supreme 
Court to overturn Amendment 64. The states claim marijuana flowing 
across the border undermines their own pot prohibitions and stresses 
criminal justice systems. The high court has not yet said whether it 
will hear the case.

University of Denver law professor Sam Kamin, who specializes in 
cannabis law, compared the ranchers' claims to the Nebraska and Oklahoma case.

"To me, what (the judge) was saying here is, 'You wish federal policy 
were different, but that is not how we do this. You wish the federal 
government would enforce (the Controlled Substances Act) more 
robustly. But the federal government has spoken, and you don't get to 
second-guess them,' " he said.
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