Adult-use Cannabis legalization may be on North Dakota’s November ballot after the petition was approved last month. Now, the sponsoring group is gathering signatures, reports KFYR.
For years, North Dakotans have considered the issue of legalizing marijuana.
“I think, you know with regulation, people should be able to choose what they want to do. And if they are practicing whatever they want to do safely, that’s fine by me,” said Bismarck resident Romeo Norris.
“We Are At Or Above All Of Our Metrics”
New Approach North Dakota is working to put marijuana on the November 2022 ballot by collecting 15,582 voter signatures by July 11.
“It’s going good,” said New Approach North Dakota campaign manager David Owen. ”We have internal metrics and quotas we manage, and we are at or above all of our metrics.”
The language of the proposed measure is similar to a 2021 bill that passed the North Dakota House. But that one failed in the North Dakota Senate after pot-hating blowhards like Republican Senator Oley Larsen spoke out.
Senator Larsen Just HATES It: ”There Ain’t Nothing Good About This”
“It’s the citizens of North Dakota that’s going to vote this in,” Larsen said of HB 1420 at the 2021 Senate Floor Session. ”But it is not our responsibility to do the best we can with this because there ain’t nothing good about this.”
State voters rejected adult-use Cannabis when it was on the ballot in 2018.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the suspension of the effort to get another measure to get the issue on the ballot in 2020.
“North Dakota Is Likely To Enact A Cannabis Legalization Law”
“North Dakota is likely to enact a cannabis legalization law by the end of this year,” said Jared Moffat, campaigns manager at Marijuana Policy Project. “Last year, the state legislature came close to passing a legalization bill, too. North Dakota’s House of Representatives approved HB 1420.” But that bill was ultimately defeated in the Senate.
Moffat said the current ballot measure represents a responsible and conservative approach to legalization, reports Kiowa County Press. That aligns, he said, with North Dakota’s values of personal responsibility and individual freedom.
Attention: Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot
“So, the biggest difference between now and 2018 … is this is restricted, regulated, controlled, legal marijuana,” New Approach’s Owen said. ”This is a marijuana program that is very, very similar to the one that passed the North Dakota State House.”
Owen added that the bill takes lessons from other middle-America states like South Dakota.
New Approach is currently collecting signatures in Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot.
