More than two years after Denver voters approved a measure making minor marijuana crimes the city's lowest law-enforcement priority, city officials continue to prosecute marijuana cases at a steady clip.

Denver city attorneys last year prosecuted 1,696 cases in which possession of less than an ounce of marijuana was at least one of the charges.

In 2008, 1,658 cases were prosecuted. In 2006 — the year before the initiative was approved — prosecutors handled 1,841 marijuana cases.

Police citations for possession of small amounts of marijuana continue unabated as well. Figures for citations and prosecutions were released last week at a meeting of the city's Marijuana Policy Review Panel.

The continued enforcement has frustrated some members of the panel, which was created by the voter initiative to implement the new law.

"Police should not be spending any time arresting and citing people for marijuana," said Mason Tvert, who runs the pro-marijuana-legalization group SAFER and is a member of the panel. "Voters do not want them to issue those citations."

Denver prosecutors, meanwhile, say their hands are tied in the marijuana cases because they are bound in those cases to follow state law, not local law.

Vince DiCroce, who is the director of the Denver city attorney's prosecution section and a panel member, said city attorneys — who ordinarily prosecute violations of city ordinance — act as special district attorneys when prosecuting marijuana crimes, which are charged as violations of separate state law. Because of that, DiCroce said, prosecutors don't take into account the voter initiative when pursuing cases.

"The local ordinances don't apply to the state laws," DiCroce said.

Tvert said the Denver city attorney's office has discretion to stop prosecuting marijuana cases and force the Denver district attorney's office to pick up the load.

As much as anything, the Denver prosecutions have highlighted how little authority the commission actually has to compel law enforcement officials to change their policies.

The 10-member panel — which includes both marijuana activists and law enforcement representatives — has passed resolutions before calling on officials to cease prosecutions or asking Denver judges to reduce the fines for the most minor marijuana cases. Those recommendations have been rebuffed.

"It's probably worth admitting to ourselves that we can talk a lot but we can't accomplish a lot in terms of enforcement," Philip Cherner, a defense lawyer who sits on the panel, said at the panel meeting last week.

Councilman Doug Linkhart, another panel member, said the panel would be better off including all its recommendations and frustrations in a comprehensive report to the City Council, which might have more authority to compel changes.

"In a lot of these areas," Linkhart said, "it's not a matter of can or cannot. It's a matter of will or will not."