Pubdate: Tue, 22 Mar 2016
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2016 Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Note: Rarely prints out-of-state LTEs.
Author: Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press

JUSTICES WON'T HEAR CASE CHALLENGING COLO. POT LAW

DENVER (AP) - Marijuana is a political debate, not a legal one - for now.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it won't consider a 
lawsuit filed by two other states challenging Colorado's pot law. But 
lawyers say that Nebraska and Oklahoma officials could pursue other 
legal challenges.

For now, the many states considering pot laws this year won't have 
immediate guidance from the nation's high court about whether they're 
free to flout federal drug law by regulating the drug. Instead, the 
26 states and Washington, D.C., that allow marijuana for medical or 
recreational purposes don't have any immediate roadblocks on their 
marijuana laws.

Nebraska's attorney general said his state may try again to challenge 
Colorado's pot law, just not directly to the nation's highest court. 
"What it basically tells us is to go forth in the federal district 
court to start off the lawsuit," Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said.

A lawsuit by some Nebraska and Kansas law enforcement officials was 
dismissed last month by a federal court in Denver.

"It doesn't mean that all the legal wrangling is done," said Sam 
Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver who studies drug 
law. "It just means that for a case to end up before the Supreme 
Court before we have a new president is extremely unlikely."

Marijuana legalization advocates seized on the Supreme Court's 
announcement as a signal that states are free to legalize marijuana.

"States have every right to regulate the cultivation and sale of 
marijuana, just as Nebraska and Oklahoma have the right to maintain 
their failed prohibition policies," said Mason Tvert, spokesman for 
the Marijuana Policy Project.

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, a Republican who opposes 
legal weed, said pot is very much a question in need of federal guidance.

"The legal questions surrounding (marijuana) still require stronger 
leadership from Washington," Coffman said.

Also on Monday, the Supreme Court ordered Massachusetts' top court to 
look again at the state's ban on stun guns.

The justices revived an appeal from a woman who said she kept a stun 
gun in her purse for self-defense against an abusive former boyfriend.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said the ban on possession 
of stun guns does not violate the Second Amendment. Monday's unsigned 
opinion said the Massachusetts court's reasoning was faulty.

The Supreme Court also signaled Monday it probably will reject a 
Republican appeal over congressional districts in Virginia.

The liberal justices sounded skeptical about a challenge brought by 
Republican members of Congress who want the Supreme Court to 
reinstate a districting map that a lower court had tossed out.

A 4-4 tie would uphold the lower court ruling.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom