North Dakota pot legalization campaign can now gather signatures

BISMARCK — A gaggle of North Dakotans making a late push to position a query about legalizing leisure marijuana on the November poll can now collect signatures.

North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger introduced Thursday, April 21, that he accepted the format of a petition that

proposes the legalization of possessing and buying small quantities of marijuana

for adults 21 and up.

The statutory measure would additionally implement insurance policies to control retail marijuana shops and growers. Hashish merchandise must be examined for contaminants, labeled and tracked via a “seed-to-sale stock system.” Driving underneath the affect and utilizing marijuana merchandise in public would nonetheless be prohibited. If handed, the measure would direct regulators to determine guidelines and create the authorized pot program by October 2023.

The 25-member sponsoring committee wants to collect 15,582 signatures from North Dakota residents by July 11 to place the query on the poll in November. (Legally, the group has a 12 months to collect the signatures, but when it turns within the required signatures after July 11, the measure would go on the poll in 2024.)

The sponsoring group, led by pro-legalization activist Dave Owen, has

introduced it should rent petition circulators

to collect the requisite signatures over the subsequent two and a half months.

The language of the proposed measure

carefully mirrors a 2021 invoice

that handed the North Dakota Home of Representatives however failed within the state Senate.

North Dakota voters accepted the legalization of medical marijuana in 2016 towards the needs of many Republican state lawmakers, however voters later rejected a leisure legalization measure led by Owen in 2018. Owen’s group suspended an effort to get the query on the 2020 poll amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leisure pot is now authorized in 18 states, together with Montana, the place voters elected to legalize the drug in 2020. A

voter-approved legalization measure

in South Dakota was deemed unconstitutional final 12 months by the state’s Supreme Court docket.