Out-of-state donors, medical marijuana dispensaries bankroll North Dakota pot legalization effort

BISMARCK — The group behind a proposed poll measure to legalize leisure marijuana in North Dakota has obtained greater than half one million {dollars} from out-of-state donors and medical pot dispensaries.

The professional-legalization group argues its out-of-state benefactors need to make sure that North Dakotans have an opportunity to vote on the problem, however vital lawmakers say exterior pursuits try to foist new legal guidelines on the state.

Final month, New Strategy North Dakota

launched a late push to put

a query on the November poll about legalizing the possession and buy of small quantities of marijuana for adults 21 and up. The group

wants to assemble 15,582 signatures

from state residents by July 11 to get the measure on the poll this 12 months.

Marketing campaign finance data reveal the group had deep-pocketed backers from the start of its drive to get on the poll.

The Washington, D.C.-based New Strategy Advocacy Fund has contributed greater than $301,000 to the group this 12 months.

The fund is carefully tied to a political motion committee (PAC) of the identical title that has supported legalization efforts throughout the nation since 2014.

In 2020, the PAC donated greater than $1.9 million to the promoters of a profitable push to legalize leisure pot in Montana, based on state data.

Throughout the identical election cycle, the committee gave about $1.8 million to South Dakota teams pursuing legalization, based on Inner Income Service filings. (Voters permitted separate medical and leisure legalization measures, however

the South Dakota Supreme Court docket

deemed the leisure measure unconstitutional.)

Spearheaded by lawyer Graham Boyd, the PAC derives most of its funding from California-based natural cleaning soap firm Dr. Bronner’s, based on IRS data.

Boyd didn’t reply to a request for remark despatched through e mail, and a spokesperson for Dr. Bronner’s stated the corporate’s “Cosmic Engagement Officer” David Bronner was touring and couldn’t be reached for remark.

The grandson of the cleaning soap firm’s founder, David Bronner is

an outspoken advocate

for drug coverage reform, together with the legalization of hashish.

The North Dakota legalization group has additionally obtained almost $36,000 from the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Coverage Mission, which has funded

makes an attempt to legalize leisure and medical marijuana

in lots of states.

Mark Friese,

a Fargo protection lawyer

who serves as New Strategy North Dakota’s treasurer, referred to the advocacy fund and the Marijuana Coverage Mission as “nationwide allies.”

Three corporations that function medical marijuana dispensaries within the state donated one other $175,000 to the North Dakota group, bringing its fundraising complete to about $512,000.

State Sen. Janne Myrdal, an Edinburg Republican who opposed legalization over the past legislative session, stated outsiders try to push new legal guidelines onto North Dakotans with their six-figure donations.

“This isn’t a N.D. initiated measure — that is an out-of-state initiated measure,” Myrdal stated.

Myrdal stated legalization could be damaging and expensive to North Dakotans, including she hopes residents will “see by” the externally funded initiative.

Friese stated state residents are main the legalization cost, and the New Strategy Advocacy Fund and the Marijuana Coverage Mission are supporting the proposed measure “as a result of they imagine the folks of North Dakota ought to have the chance to determine this situation.”

“North Dakotans are circulating these petitions,” Friese stated in an e mail. “North Dakotans are signing these petitions. And North Dakotans will determine the end result of the election in November 2022.”

State Rep. Jason Dockter, a Bismarck Republican,

proposed a legalization invoice

throughout the 2021 legislative session as a result of he believed voters would quickly legalize pot within the state if the lawmakers didn’t act. The proposal handed the Home however died within the Senate after Myrdal and different social conservatives argued authorized pot could be dangerous to the state.

Dockter, who’s personally against legalized marijuana, stated he’s upset lawmakers didn’t approve a extremely restrictive leisure pot program once they had the prospect.

Now, voters might approve a barely extra open leisure pot program that might permit grownup residents to develop as much as three marijuana crops at dwelling, and the Legislature would “must dwell with it,” Dockter stated.

“I don’t like outdoors funding dictating coverage, however we didn’t get one thing handed (in 2021),” Dockter stated. “If (the measure) passes… I’ll give a glance to my colleagues and say ‘right here we are actually.’”

North Dakota voters permitted the legalization of medical marijuana in 2016 in opposition to the needs of many Republican state lawmakers however later rejected a leisure legalization measure in 2018.

Friese stated the group will use many of the funding it has raised throughout the drive to get signatures. The marketing campaign is utilizing a mixture of paid circulators and volunteers to assemble signatures.

The group has already spent almost $55,000, principally to pay employees and authorized advisers. Friese stated it’s “unlikely however potential” the marketing campaign might want to increase more cash.