Colorado is being Sued for Cannabis Legalization by…Oklahoma and Nebraska

The issue of states’ rights has always been a bit contentious in the United States for about the past two hundred years, with many state laws coming under scrutiny by or even over turned by federal authorities. This was one of the primary concerns surrounding Amendment 64, the fairly recently ratified Coloradan law which legalized recreational cannabis. However, in a bizarre twist federal authorities haven’t done much to interfere, barring of course the continuous DEA raids. In a far more bizarre twist through two neighboring states are attempting to sue Colorado over the legal change.

Both Oklahoma and Nebraska have filed lawsuits against Colorado and are even going so far as to appeal to the Supreme Court. This appeal is ultimately intended to reverse the ratification Amendment 64 on the grounds that Colorado’s law “has created a dangerous gap in the federal drug control system.” Evidently, the governing bodies of Oklahoma and Nebraska contend that they both have seen an increase in state spending due to a higher number of arrests, vehicle impoundment, and seizure of illicit materials, transfer of prisoners, and other issues attributed to marijuana. Yes, that’s right, Oklahoma and Nebraska are blaming their problems on another state just because said state legalized weed.

Of course he suit filed by the two states doesn’t reference any figures to back up their assertions, nor do they correlate the passage of Amendment 64 with an observed spike in crime or arrests. But of course this isn’t going to stop the bureaucrat and neither are the actual facts and figures. For example, after the passage of Amendment 64, in spite of contrary predictions by law enforcement, crime in Colorado has gone down.

To be specific according to data released by the Coloradan government property crime on the whole is down, sexual assault has dropped six point four percent, and homicide is down almost twenty-five percent compared to the year prior. The only thing which has risen significantly is arson which is up thirty-five percent, but even with that included crime on the whole has still diminished slightly in the Centennial State. This trend is of course consistent with scientific studies, such as one article published in PLoS by Morris et al.

Just as was seen in Colorado Morris and colleagues determined that no increase in crime would be observed after cannabis legalization, and in fact reduced homicide and assault rates may be observed and correlated. So given the weight of all of this data is seems that Oklahoma and Nebraska are running a fool’s errand with the lawsuit and Supreme Court appeal. As to what both states government’s motives are I can’t say, but if the past is anything to go by they may just be attempting to point fingers to keep everyone from blaming them for their own gubernatorial incompetence.