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The Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to Colorado's recreational cannabis law from neighboring states:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out a lawsuit filed by the states of Nebraska and Oklahoma against their neighbor Colorado over a law approved as a ballot initiative by Colorado voters in 2012 that allows the recreational use of marijuana. The court declined to hear the case filed by Nebraska and Oklahoma, which said that marijuana is being smuggled across their borders and noted that federal law still prohibits the drug. Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, said they would have heard the case.
Nebraska and Oklahoma contended that drugs such as marijuana threaten the health and safety of children and argued that Colorado had created "a dangerous gap" in the federal drug control system. Colorado stands by its law. It noted that the Obama administration has indicated the federal government lacks the resources and inclination to enforce fully the federal marijuana ban.
Also at The Washington Post, NYT.
See the Plaintiffs' brief, and Colorado's brief in opposition.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Monday March 21 2016, @11:09PM
that soon, it can be made federally legal, taxed for us all. And better still quality controlled the same way as everything else we consume.
I still will not touch it, but at least there will be one less reason to lock someone up for what is, essentially, a morality crusade.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Monday March 21 2016, @11:21PM
It's a sad state of affairs when an appeal to liberty and inherent rights is inferior to the regulate-and-tax option.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:35AM
Especially when the idea is to give the Feds the money. I like the idea of the taxes on my pot going to my state. That way it would at least have an opportunity to help me in meaningful ways. Like potholes, roads, schools, etc.
You give it to the Feds, they might give it to WallStreet the next time things get a little tough. The biggest reason of course if that the Feds *constantly* strong arm states over policies with threats to remove highways funds or the like if they don't get their way.
Pot money should be state money :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:24AM
It's not a "morality crusade" though. The reason pot (and most other drugs) are illegal has very little if anything to do with morality, and all sorts of things to do with race.
As in, white people can get away with being caught with dope (this fact saved the butts of multiple white folks I know in several different jurisdictions), but non-white men are routinely locked up over trace amounts somewhere in the vicinity. It's really not an exaggeration to say that the War on Drugs is really the War on Black and Hispanic Men. Which conveniently creates the largest prison population in the world that can be all but forced to work for lower wages than they could get outside of prison, and once they get out they can now legally be discriminated against in everything from jobs to housing to public assistance because they have a drug conviction.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday March 22 2016, @03:42AM
Yeah, not a user either, and not impressed with the potheads I've known, but just legalize and tax the damn stuff already and stop eroding what's left of the 4th Amendment. It's a current argument here in MT ... I can come up with all sorts of objections to legalization, but it all boils down to "ain't no different than what people already do" and what you can't stop, you might as well benefit from. Cripes, it'd be like free money raining from the sky, and there's not many gov't budgets that don't need it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.