A second lawsuit by a former Nebraska state senator to invalidate the victory of medical marijuana this past November at the ballot box has been expanded to include not only the governor and secretary of state as defendants, but also six other state officials who would have roles overseeing the upcoming cannabis industry.
The lawsuit, filed by former state Sen. John Kuehn, was amended this week to also target the three members of the state Liquor Control Commission, state Treasurer Tom Briese, state Tax Commissioner Jim Kamm, and CEO Steve Corsi of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Nebraska Examiner reported. The original defendants were Gov. Jim Pillen and Secretary of State Bob Evnen.
Kuehn argues in his latest lawsuit that the two ballot measures that voters approved in November require all of the state official defendants to break federal law by helping to establish a regulatory system for the medical marijuana trade, and thus are unconstitutional.
“No matter is of greater public concern than preventing the government from burdening the taxpayer with the administrative costs of violating federal law,” the amended complaint states.
The lawsuit asserts that the cannabis initiatives would illegally require the expenditure of state funds to set up the new industry. The state Department of Revenue would be forced to begin money laundering, as taxes derived from marijuana sales would be legally considered ill-gotten gains, and the DHHS could be guilty of aiding and abetting federally illegal participation by licensed physicians if it didn’t take action to discipline them for recommending cannabis to patients, the suit charges.
None of the defendants commented on the news to the Nebraska Examiner.
Kuehn’s first lawsuit that tried to invalidate the pair of medical marijuana initiatives was rejected last month by a county district judge; it is now pending appeal before the state Supreme Court. That suit challenged the validity of signatures submitted on behalf of the pro-cannabis campaign that got the two initiatives onto the ballot, but the judge overseeing the case found no reason to toss out the signatures in question and dismissed the case.
The lawsuit contends that the measures that legalized medical cannabis require state officials to break federal law. Read More
