[Concho]

Right, Wrong, or Indifferent, isnt this in conflict with Federal Law?

[Huck]

Not exactly. Colorado can't stop the Feds from enforcing Federal (national) drug laws, but their state laws don't have to be in synch. They are deciding what their STATE law (and hence their law enforcement) should be.

[rottndog]

Right, Wrong, or Indifferent, isnt this in conflict with Federal Law?

Medical marijuana laws conflicted with the feds too, but the courts agreed with the states.

[TKDietz]

"Right, Wrong, or Indifferent, isnt this in conflict with Federal Law?"

States can and often do have laws that are different than federal laws. Federal law enforcement enforce federal laws and local law enforcement enforce state laws. Most all arrests made in this country are made pursuant to state laws by local law enforcement. Federal law enforcement are pretty specialized and there really aren't that many out there arresting people compared to the numbers of state and local police, sheriff's deputies, etc. There is a pretty darned good argument that the feds don't have the constitutional authority to have and enforce a lot of the laws they have, but that's another topic altogether. If a state were to do away with their laws criminalizing possession of small amounts marijuana, very few people would get arrested for it in that state because the feds would be the only ones enforcing their ban on simple possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Would it be illegal for states to do this? No. What could the feds do about it? I imagine what they would do is figure out ways to deny the offending states federal funding. They sure as heck won't go hiring enough federal law enforcement officers to keep arresting people for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana in states that do not have such laws.

[robertpaulsen]

"... isnt this in conflict with Federal Law?"

Yes.

And federal law trumps state law. The state would be violating the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.

In my opinion, any state official who supports this state law, who was sworn to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, ought to be charged by the federal government with sedition, tried, and jailed.

As Justice Hughes stated in The Shreveport Rate Cases (1914): "Nor can the attempted exercise of state authority alter the matter, where Congress has acted, for a state may not authorize the carrier to do that which Congress is entitled to forbid and has forbidden."

[ladyinred]

I wondered that as well.