Nebraska activists have revived their efforts to place medical marijuana legalization in the ballot.
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, a group that advocates for the use of medical marijuana in Nebraska, submitted two petitions on Thursday to the Secretary of State’s Office to begin the ballot process for 2024.
The campaign is now on its third attempt to get voters to decide whether medical cannabis should be legalized. The state Supreme Court invalidated the measure after a single-subject challenge. Advocates had collected enough signatures to place the measure on the 2020 ballot. They fell short of signatures on revised petitions due to a loss in funding for 2022.
Crista Eggers said in a release that “we have no other choice than to continue petitioning our government.” Crista is the co-chair for the NMM campaign. “The Legislature has refused to act, despite the support of more than 80 percent of Nebraskans, from all parties, regions and ages.”
She said, “For more than 10 years, we have advocated, educated, and fought to do things the right way through our elected leaders in Unicameral and every year, we come up empty-handed.” “So, we’ll go back to the polls once more.”
Wishart said to Marijuana Moment that the petitions submitted on Thursday are “the same as the language used in 2022” and “will be reviewed by the SOS.”
She attributes the lack of progress to changes in membership and turnover. She attributes inaction due to changes in members and turnover. A previous version of the measure ultimately stalled in the GOP controlled legislature due to a filibuster.
Wishart, speaking of the ballot effort for 2024, said: “Of Course we will be filing again.” “The only way to be successful is to never quit and to grow stronger every time you hit a roadblock.”
Today @NebraskaMJ launches our ballot initiative that will put the question of legalizing medical cannabis to the voters by 2024. We won’t and can’t give up until Nebraskans with serious illnesses and chronic pain have access to plant-based medicines.
https://t.co/4VE9y5gi56
Senator Anna Wishart 18 May 2023 HTML0
She said, “We learned that last year we didn’t need to wait for a major donor in order to be successful.” We were able, on a shoestring with volunteer effort and a small budget, to collect almost 180,000 signatures within three months. Imagine what we could do with a full year’s worth of signatures.
The campaign’s initiative, which was submitted to lawmakers on Thursday, would codify protections that doctors could recommend and for patients to purchase and possess cannabis. The patient-focused campaign says its goal is to “enact legislation that will make penalties unapplicable under state or local law to qualified patients who possess, use and acquire limited quantities of marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor’s written recommendation, as well as caregivers to assist qualified patients in these activities.”
The second measure would establish a Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission that would “provide registration and regulation for persons who possess, manufacture and distribute cannabis for medical use, as well as those who deliver and dispense it.”
The complementary proposals should be focused on a specific subject to avoid the same challenges that derailed earlier reform efforts in 2020.
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Adam Morfeld (former Nebraska senator and co-chair of NMM) said: “Despite the disappointing Nebraska Supreme Court ruling on 2020, it gave us a clear road map and clarity for refiling a new initiative.” After a thorough review of the decision, we have developed two new statutory measures that we believe will meet constitutional requirements.
To be included on the ballot for November 2024, the campaign must collect approximately 87,000 valid signatures per petition by July 5, 2020.
Activists plan to launch a petition drive at the start of June.
The campaign implied that after the failure of the medical cannabis initiative in 2022 they may pursue a legalization initiative for adult use. It appears the strategy is focused solely on medical marijuana.
Text below the petitions for medical cannabis:
A survey finds that one in four young adults say federal marijuana employment policies prevent them from applying for government jobs
Max Pixel .
The post Nebraska activists take first step to put medical marijuana legalization on the 2024 ballot appeared initially on Marijuana Moment.
