WASHINGTON — Oklahoma and Nebraska compared Colorado to a drug cartel on Wednesday and again urged the Supreme Court to let them sue their neighbor over its marijuana production and distribution system.

WASHINGTON — Oklahoma and Nebraska compared Colorado to a drug cartel on Wednesday and again urged the Supreme Court to let them sue their neighbor over its marijuana production and distribution system.

In sharply written arguments, the two states said Colorado "has created a massive criminal enterprise whose sole purpose is to authorize and facilitate the manufacture, distribution, sale and use of marijuana."

"The State of Colorado authorizes, oversees, protects and profits from a sprawling $100 million per-month marijuana growing, processing and retailing organization that exported thousands of pounds of marijuana to some 36 States in 2014," the states’ new brief says.

"If this entity were based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it as a drug cartel."

Oklahoma and Nebraska also blasted the Obama administration for arguing that the Supreme Court should not allow the states to sue Colorado.

Supreme Court justices decide what suits are permitted among states. They hear the ones allowed to move forward and render rulings in them. The court may decide in the next few weeks whether to hear the marijuana case.

Oklahoma and Nebraska sought permission more than a year ago to sue Colorado, claiming the state’s licensing for marijuana production and distribution increased the amount of pot in their own states.

Colorado approved Amendment 64 in 2012, which legalized certain amounts of personal cultivation and consumption and also established a licensing regime for production and retail stores.

‘Major Exporter’

Oklahoma and Nebraska charged Wednesday that Colorado now calls itself a "major exporter of marijuana" and "knows that a large portion of the demand for its illegal marijuana comes from residents of neighboring states and that as many as half the visitors to Colorado are motivated to visit by marijuana."

Colorado told the Supreme Court in March that Oklahoma and Nebraska "filed this case in an attempt to reach across their borders and selectively invalidate state laws with which they disagree."

The Obama administration argued to the justices last month that the complaint filed by Oklahoma and Nebraska is not the kind normally considered by the high court.

"This case does not satisfy the direct injury requirement," the administration said in its December brief.

"Nebraska and Oklahoma essentially contend that Colorado’s authorization of licensed intrastate marijuana production and distribution increases the likelihood that third parties will commit criminal offenses in Nebraska and Oklahoma by bringing marijuana purchased from licensed entities in Colorado into those states.

"But they do not allege that Colorado had directed or authorized any individual to transport marijuana into their territories in violation of their laws.

"Nor would any such allegation be plausible."

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson — both Republicans — accused the administration of anarchy on Wednesday. In their new filing, they say the federal Controlled Substances Act takes precedence over any state laws legalizing marijuana.

"Because the current administration does not want to take the politically inconvenient position of opposing marijuana legalization, nor is it willing to take the legally untenable position that Amendment 64 can be reconciled with the CSA, the solicitor general instead recommends that this court should refrain from hearing this case," the two states said in their new brief.

"Thus, the solicitor general is forced to argue that a state that has been harmed as a result of a neighboring state’s unconstitutional actions has no recourse or remedy for those harms."

The Oklahoman. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.