Pubdate: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Copyright: 2016 Associated Press Contact: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-letters-to-the-editor-htmlstory.html Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159 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 theM arijuana 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom