Arizona Will Vote on Adult-Use Cannabis Legalization This November

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said on Monday that the cannabis legalization campaign had submitted enough valid signatures to put the question to voters in November.

“After review, the petition exceeded the minimum requirement with approximately 255,080 valid signatures and will be placed on the General Election ballot as Prop. 207,” Hobbs said in a tweet. The campaign had submitted 420,000 signatures to officials in July, they needed 237,645.

Anti-legalization advocates had filed a lawsuit to keep the question off of General Election ballots regardless of whether the campaign had submitted enough signatures, claiming that the 100-word summary of the petition did not tell voters the reforms would allow more potent forms of cannabis, change state driving under the influence laws, and didn’t specifically say that the proposed 16 percent tax on sales could not be increased by the Legislature.

Last week, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge rejected that argument by Arizonans for Health and Public Safety, ruling that the provisions included in the ballot summary language relayed enough information for voters who signed the petitions. Judge James D. Smith wrote in his decision that the principal provisions of the Smart and Safe Arizona Act were included in the summary and said that it took the anti-cannabis group 25 pages to outline what had not been included in the 100-word summary of the petition.

That ruling is expected to be appealed by the plaintiffs.

In 2016, Arizona voters rejected legalization in the state with 52 percent of the vote.