WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a complaint from neighboring states that Colorado’s relaxation of marijuana laws hurts them and undermines federal law.
The court without comment turned down the petition from Nebraska and Oklahoma.
Those states said that Colorado’s move to decriminalize certain uses of marijuana increased trafficking into their states, requiring them to expend significant “law enforcement, judicial system and penal system resources.”
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented from the decision not to take the case, saying the court had an obligation to settle such disputes between states.
“The plaintiffs have alleged significant harm to their sovereign interests caused by another state,” Thomas wrote. “Whatever the merits of the plaintiff state’s claims, we should let this complaint proceed further rather than denying leave without so much as a word of explanation.”
The court also overturned a ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court that upheld a state law prohibiting the possession of stun guns.
The justices in an unsigned opinion said the state court’s ruling was not consistent with its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller that said the Second Amendment provided an individual right to gun ownership.
The decision said the Second Amendment covers “all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
The Supreme Court’s order Monday said the reasons the state court “offered for upholding the law contradicts this court’s precedent” and sent it back.
The cases are Nebraska v. Colorado and Caetano v. Massachusetts.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Robert Barnes
