A discussion of pot always stirs the pot, as it were, but perhaps even more interesting, from the professorial point of view, is a discussion of the current dispute between Oklahoma and Nebraska, on the one hand, and Colorado, on the other. The state law in the former two forbids pot, as does federal law. Colorado state law permits recreational use of the drug.
Oklahoma and Nebraska have sued Colorado in the Supreme Court -- one of the few types of cases in which the Court has original jurisdiction -- alleging unhealthy and illegal spillover effects into their states of the latter's more permissive law. The Court has invited the United States to submit its views. Eric Holder got out of Dodge before a decision had to be made on this hot potato.
CJLF takes no position on pot legalization itself, but the federalism, supremacy, Commerce Clause and preemption issues at stake in the case are irresistible. What position the feds take here is likely to reverberate in similar supremacy and spillover cases involving, for example, DOJ's position on state laws affecting water pollution, firearms regulation and immigration policy.
Prof. Zac Bolitho of Campbell Law School in Raleigh, NC takes an astute and fair-minded look at the case in his op-ed today in the Los Angeles Times. Take a look.
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