Nebraska voters will have the chance to vote on two medical marijuana legalization initiatives at the ballot box in November, state officials announced.

While advocates have faced repeated setbacks in their push for cannabis reform in previous elections, the Secretary of State’s office confirmed Friday that Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM) has submitted enough signatures to secure placement on the ballot.

NMM had turned in more than 114,000 signatures for each of the proposals as of July, and officials said about 89,000 have been verified so far, surpassing the 87,000 signature requirement to place the ballot. They also met the 5 percent threshold for signatures in 51 counties, surpassing the required 38.

This is the third time in recent years that the campaign has tried to get voters to decide whether to legalize medical cannabis.

“After years of hard work, we are beyond excited that Nebraskans will finally have the opportunity to make their voices heard on this issue this November,” said Crista Eggers, NMM campaign manager. “Our fight has been long, it has been tough, but we have never given up.”

“Today we celebrate that patients in this state will soon have access to medical cannabis treatments,” she said. “We want to thank all of the Nebraskans who have dedicated countless hours and days of their lives to make this possible, and we look forward to final certification by the Secretary of State in the coming days.”

The secretary of state’s office said the Elections Division has not yet formally certified the petitions, but that this is only a procedural step as the state has already determined that the measures “meet the 100 percent signature threshold required for verification and certification, and will then be eligible for the general election ballot once verification and certification are completed.”

“Our office is providing this update to keep voters informed of where county election offices are in the signature verification process,” Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R) said in a news release Friday. “Election workers are checking every voter’s signature on the remaining petitions, and we will have petitions verified before the Sept. 13 deadline to certify November ballots.”

📄 Press release: State Secretary provides updates on remaining petitions.

🔗 Read the full press release here: https://t.co/ZcfAqzDDeG photo.twitter.com/Yug3gBW5HV

— NE Foreign Minister Robert Evnen (@NebraskaSOS) August 30, 2024

NMM had made it a priority to meet a separate requirement to collect signatures from at least 5 percent of voters in at least 38 counties in the state. Activists succeeded.

The campaign worked to get medical cannabis on the ballot in two previous election cycles. But the loss of crucial funding in the last election cycle and the state Supreme Court’s intervention in the earlier effort led to its defeat.

The first of the campaign’s two current ballot initiatives would require lawmakers to codify protections for doctors who recommend cannabis and patients who purchase and possess it. The patient-focused measure says its goal was to “enact a law that renders unenforceable penalties under state and local law for the use, possession, and acquisition of limited amounts of cannabis for medical purposes by a qualified patient with a written recommendation from a health care provider, and for a caregiver to assist a qualified patient in these activities.”

The other initiative would create a new Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to provide “necessary registration and regulation of persons who possess, manufacture, distribute, deliver and dispense cannabis for medical purposes.”

The campaign began collecting signatures early this round. In addition to meeting the county threshold, activists successfully collected signatures from at least seven percent of registered voters statewide to qualify for the ballot.

Volunteers had been busy filing petitions since July of last year, about two months after they submitted the two complementary legalization initiatives to the Secretary of State’s office.

Governor Jim Pillen (R) has spoken out against the reform efforts. Last year, he said that legalization “is demonstrably harmful to our children” and that medical cannabis should only be available if it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

One of NMM’s earlier campaigns gathered enough signatures to be placed on the ballot in 2020, but the measure was invalidated by the state Supreme Court after a single-subject challenge. Supporters then ran out of signatures for revised petitions in 2022, largely due to the loss of funding after one of their top donors died in a plane crash.

Nebraska lawmakers, including campaign manager Sen. Anna Wishart (D), have also tried to pass the reform through legislation, but cannabis bills have repeatedly stalled in the conservative legislature.

Wishart’s medical cannabis bill was heard in the unicameral Judiciary Committee last year, but it failed to advance. She attributed the inactivity to changes in the committee’s membership. An earlier version of the measure ultimately failed in the GOP-controlled Legislature amid a filibuster that proponents were unable to overcome.

Meanwhile, two bills to legalize adult-use cannabis also received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee in August, ahead of a special session called by the Republican governor. They have not advanced at this time.

In addition, lawmakers debated a sweeping property tax relief bill during a special session this summer. The bill originally included a steep new tax on hemp and CBD consumer products, but that provision was removed before final passage.

An earlier tax bill for the previous regular session initially included a 100 percent tax rate on consumer hemp products. But after industry and consumer pushback, the proposed rate was lowered to 30 percent for the special session before being struck from the bill.

Arkansas activists turn in final batch of signatures to put medical marijuana expansion on ballot

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.