DENVER – A Democrat running for Colorado attorney general says the federal government should lay off its prosecution of a suburban Denver pot grower.

Stan Garnett said in a statement Thursday that the pending federal case against Christopher Bartkowicz is “unjust and unnecessary.”

Garnett is currently Boulder County District Attorney. He’s challenging Republican Attorney General John Suthers.

Bartkowicz faces federal marijuana cultivation charges, so the case is one a state prosecutor wouldn’t be able to stop. But Garnett says he believes that marijuana cases are better handled through zoning rules, not the criminal system.