Editor's Note: Colorado is being slammed by lawsuits targeting its marijuana laws, including a suit filed by Nebraska and Oklahoma's Attorneys General, two suits filed by Safe Streets Alliance–one filed in concernt with a Holiday Inn operator New Vision Hotels, and another filed by property owners in Colorado. This new suit will only add to the financial burden hitting the state, as well as to the drain on time and resources of city officials and the legal system. The suits also, by nature of wanting to shut down the legalized and regulated marijuana system that has been establish, also aim to push marijuana back into the illegal, black market–a surprising move to come from law enforcement officials. Â
In a statement released to CBT, Marijuana Policy Project Director of Communications Mason Tvert commented in response to the suit:
"Hopefully these guys are more adept at law enforcement than they are at constitutional law. This is just another case of the Arrest and Prosecution Industry teaming up with marijuana prohibition groups to roll back the progress that has been made in Colorado.
These guys are the 'Roy Moores' of marijuana, only they're trying to turn back the clock in a state instead of their own. Polls released in the past couple weeks have found a majority of Americans support making marijuana legal, and that the majority of Colorado voters who support it is even greater than when our law  was passed in 2012.
Marijuana is legal for adults in Colorado, regulation is working, and it's time for these folks to get over it.
Voters and elected officials adopted these laws in order to make our communities safer. It's disappointing to see these officials, who are supposed to be maintaining public safety, try to undermine them.
We cannot fathom why these guys would prefer marijuana cultivation and sales go back to being completely uncontrolled in Colorado. If they want to maintain a system of marijuana chaos in their states, that's their choice. But they shouldn't be trying to drag Colorado down with them."
DENVER – Sheriffs from Colorado and neighboring states Kansas and Nebraska say in a lawsuit to be filed Thursday that Colorado's marijuana law creates a "crisis of conscience" by pitting the state law against the Constitution and puts an economic burden on other states.
The lawsuit asks a federal court in Denver to strike down Colorado's Amendment 64 that legalized the sale of recreational marijuana and to close the state's more than 330 licensed marijuana stores.
Lead plaintiff, Larimer County, Colo., Sheriff Justin Smith, calls the case a "constitutional showdown." Each day, he says, he must decide whether to violate the Colorado Constitution or the U.S. Constitution. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana sales Jan. 1, 2014, but marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.
