By Molly Ashford 
, Nebraska Public Media
27 de Abril de 2026 a las 12:00 ·
Nebraskans overwhelmingly voted to legalize and regulate medical marijuana in 2024 – but a number of legal challenges are still making their way through the courts system.
The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a lawsuit filed by John Kuehn, a former state senator, who argued that the legalization of medical marijuana is preempted by federal law and any expenditure of public funds to regulate the new industry is illegal. Kuehn sued three groups of people: The members of the Medical Cannabis Commission, a variety of state officials including Pillen and the secretary of state, and the sponsors of the medical marijuana ballot initiative.
Kuehn’s lawsuit was dismissed last year after a Lancaster County judge found that he lacked standing, and he appealed the dismissal.
Instead of the typical two-sided argument, three attorneys addressed the court on Monday: Edward Greim for Kuehn, Assistant Attorney General Zach Pohlman for the state defendants, and Jason Grams for the members of the Medical Cannabis Commission.
In most cases, a person bringing a lawsuit must prove that they suffered an “injury in fact” – a concrete, non-hypothetical harm – to assert standing. There are limited exceptions to this rule. Kuehn argued he had standing under Nebraska’s taxpayer standing exception, which allows taxpayers to challenge an unlawful expenditure of public funds. Alternatively, he said he had standing under the narrow exception that allows the court to rule on cases of great public concern.
Greim defended Kuehn’s assertion of taxpayer standing. He was questioned by the justices about whether accepting this broad interpretation of taxpayer standing would result in the “exception swallowing the rule” – in other words, if Kuehn’s argument would make the exceptions to the injury-in-fact rule so overbroad that the rule is essentially invalid.
“Every act of government has some expenditure of taxpayer money. So what – is there a limiting principle?” Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke asked Greim. “Or is it just if any money is expended, there's a taxpayer standing and somebody can bring a suit?”
Greim said the limiting principle is that the “unlawful act must actually cause an increase in expenditures.” Pohlman, arguing for the state defendants, called Greim’s description of the limiting principle “verbal gymnastics.”
“If employee time and the ordinary costs of implementing a statute are enough, then litigants would never need to prove a concrete injury to challenge a state action,” Pohlman said.
Pohlman and Grams also disputed that Kuehn had standing under the great public concern exception. The Nebraska Supreme Court has very rarely granted standing under that exception, and it has generally been rejected in constitutional challenges to state statutes.
This case is one of two legal challenges to medical marijuana laws filed by Kuehn. In a separate lawsuit brought before the November election, Kuehn alleged widespread fraud in the signature-gathering process, and asked a court to remove the questions from the 2024 ballot. Though a lower-court judge in that case found that some signatures were invalid, that fell short of the number required to invalidate the petitions.
The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments in that case in December, but it has not yet released a decision.
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