Activists in Nebraska unveiled a new strategy this week in their effort to legalize medical marijuana through the ballot box next year, announcing that they\u2019ll seek to qualify a pair of complementary initiatives to put before voters.<\/p>\n
The bifurcated approach is an effort to avoid running afoul of the state\u2019s single-issue rule for citizen initiatives, a policy led the state Supreme Court last year to invalidate a medical cannabis legalization measure<\/a> that had qualified for the 2020 general election.<\/p>\n A separate effort in the legislature this session<\/a> stalled when supporters failed to muster enough votes to overcome a GOP-led filibuster.<\/p>\n In the aftermath, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana said in June that the group was drafting multiple, complementary ballot initiatives in addition to an extremely short constitutional amendment that would simply declare people \u201cin the state of Nebraska shall have the right to cannabis in all its forms for medical purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n But the group now tells<\/a> the Lincoln Journal Star it will scrap that pared-down language in favor of two separate statutory initiatives that would \u201cwork in unison\u201d: One would direct the legislature to pass a bill establishing legal protections for patients and doctors around cannabis, while the other would require lawmakers to pass legislation allowing private companies to produce and sell medical marijuana products.<\/p>\n State Sen. Anna Wishart (D), who also co-chairs Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, told the paper that the two-pronged approach was designed to withstand legal challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cOur main goal is putting in place language that we feel absolutely confident in,\u201d Wishart said, \u201cthat we have looked at every type of potential challenge could come and we feel we have addressed it.\u201d<\/p>\n The senator also introduced a medical marijuana legalization bill during the state\u2019s legislative session, but opponents defeated it. Wishart and Sen. Adam Morfeld (D) announced in December that they would also work to put the question of\u00a0legalizing marijuana for adult use before voters in 2022<\/a>. It\u2019s not clear if a recreational measure is still in the works or not.<\/p>\n Nebraska\u2019s attorney general said in an opinion in 2019 that efforts to legalize medical marijuana legislatively in the state would be preempted by federal law<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cwould be, therefore, unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has been working on the new petitions with help from advocates at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), ACLU of Nebraska and other organizations, Wishart told the Journal Star.<\/p>\n Jared Moffat, campaigns manager for MPP, told Marijuana Moment in an email Monday that the new language is now being carefully vetted \u201cand opponents are going to have a much harder time keeping it off the ballot in 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOpponents of cannabis policy reform are realizing that it\u2019s almost impossible for them to win at the ballot box,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a result, we\u2019re seeing more attempts to overturn the will of the people through legal technicalities and direct assaults on the initiative process itself. Nebraskan patients learned this the hard way last year, but the families and patients fighting for medical cannabis in the state are not going to simply give up when their loved ones\u2019 lives are on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n Crista Eggers, signature drive director for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, told Marijuana Moment in June that the plan was to \u201chit the ground running on a mass scale\u201d<\/a> beginning this summer to gather signatures to qualify the previously announced short constitutional measure. Those efforts will now presumably be put toward the new two-pronged statutory effort.<\/p>\n \u201cThis time around, we are absolutely making sure that everything is very solid and there are no holes in anything and nothing the opposition can use in the future to try to overturn things,\u201d Eggers said.<\/p>\n Under last year\u2019s blocked Nebraska medical cannabis initiative, physicians would have been able to recommend cannabis to patients suffering from debilitating medical conditions, and those patients would then have been allowed to possess, purchase and \u201cdiscreetly\u201d cultivate marijuana for personal use.<\/p>\n The text of the two new proposals for 2022 is still being finalized.<\/p>\n In a Facebook chat with activists last week, Eggers said the team is \u201cvery close to having the petition language ready to file\u201d and that lawyers are vetting the provisions to make sure the opposition doesn\u2019t have vulnerabilities to exploit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t take any shortcuts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana<\/a> qualified that measure for the ballot\u2014only to be thwarted by the court\u2014they submitted nearly 200,000 signatures. Eggers said there\u2019s lasting frustration among voters, including those who may not have been especially impassioned about the issue itself, that the court unilaterally prevented them from acting on the proposal.<\/p>\n She also noted that reform efforts underway in surrounding states will serve the campaign by creating regional momentum and pressure.<\/p>\n Even if activists do collect enough petitions to qualify any of the measures, however, they\u2019re expected to face a challenge at the polls. Midterms generally see lower turnout compared to presidential election years, and those who do vote in off-years have traditionally been less supportive of cannabis reform.<\/p>\n Looking ahead to 2022, Nebraska isn\u2019t the only state where voters could see cannabis reform on the ballot.<\/p>\n Advocates in Oklahoma are preparing two complementary ballot initiatives<\/a>, one that would legalize adult-use cannabis and another that would make changes to the state\u2019s massive medical marijuana system.<\/p>\n Meanwhile a pair of Wyoming reform initiatives\u2014one to decriminalize marijuana possession and another to legalize medical cannabis\u2014recently cleared an initial hurdle<\/a>\u00a0on the path to qualifying for that state\u2019s 2022 ballot.<\/p>\n Idaho officials have recently\u00a0cleared activists to begin collecting signatures<\/a>\u00a0for a revised initiative to legalize possession of marijuana that they hope to place before voters on the 2022 ballot. Advocates in the state are also working to qualify a\u00a0separate measure to legalize medical cannabis<\/a>\u00a0for ballot access.<\/p>\n In South Dakota, activists last month filed\u00a0four separate cannabis ballot measures<\/a>\u00a0for 2022.<\/p>\n North Dakota activists are formulating\u00a0plans for a marijuana legalization measure<\/a>\u00a0after lawmakers failed to enact the reform this session.<\/p>\n A group of Missouri marijuana activists recently filed several separate initiatives to\u00a0put marijuana reform on the state\u2019s 2022 ballot<\/a>, a move that comes as other advocacy groups are preparing additional efforts to collect signatures for cannabis ballot petitions of their own. Meanwhile, still other activists are focusing on getting the legislature to pass a resolution to place the question of legalization before voters next year.<\/p>\n Arkansas activists are currently collecting signatures for a marijuana legalization measure<\/a> they want to put before voters next November.<\/p>\n In Maryland, the House speaker has pledged to pass legislation to\u00a0place a marijuana legalization referendum<\/a>\u00a0on the 2022 ballot.<\/p>\n Ohio activists awaiting official clearance to\u00a0collect signatures for a statewide ballot measure<\/a>\u00a0that would effectively force the legislature to consider cannabis reform. Meanwhile, other groups also recently\u00a0qualified several measure to decriminalize cannabis<\/a>\u00a0to appear on local 2021 ballots.<\/p>\n A newly established Texas progressive group unveiled a campaign last month to\u00a0put an initiative to decriminalize marijuana possession<\/a>\u00a0and ban no-knock warrants on this November\u2019s ballot in Austin.<\/p>\n Advocates are also working to put marijuana initiatives on\u00a0local ballots in South Carolina and West Virginia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court has\u00a0blocked two cannabis legalization initiatives<\/a>\u00a0for which activists had already collected thousands of signatures.<\/p>\n Former Anti-Marijuana Congressman And Top Trump Health Official Joins Cannabis Company Board, Documents Show<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Nebraska Medical Marijuana Advocates Reveal Updated 2022 Ballot Strategy Featuring Two Separate Initiatives<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Activists in Nebraska unveiled a new strategy this week in their effort to legalize medical marijuana through the ballot box next year, announcing that they\u2019ll seek to qualify a pair of complementary initiatives to put before voters. The bifurcated approach is an effort to avoid running afoul of the state\u2019sContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49328,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49327\/revisions\/49328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Nebraska Medical Marijuana Advocates Reveal Updated 2022 Ballot Strategy Featuring Two Separate Initiatives<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"