Judge Allows Parts of Lawsuit Challenging Medical Cannabis Petitions to Move Forward

A Lancaster County, Nebraska judge is allowing parts of the lawsuit challenging the two petitions to legalize medical cannabis to move forward, WOWT reports. In an order last week, Judge Susan Strong said that while the petitions had cleared the state’s “single-subject” rule and that they did contain enough information about the sponsors, the claim that Secretary of State Bob Evnen failed to strike duplicate signatures would be allowed to proceed in court. 

The lawsuit was filed earlier this month by John Kuehn, a former State Board of Heath member, veterinarian and rancher who has opposed any form of cannabis legalization.  

In the order, Strong noted that precedent would allow some clerical and technical errors to be disregarded if that information could be inferred from other evidence in the petition, such as the date it as signed, but that it was important to determine whether the alleged errors fell into that category, and allowed the two counts on signature disputes to proceed to arguments.    

In a statement, Crista Eggers, with Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, said the groups was “grateful” for Strong’s “decision to dismiss the single subject and sponsor sufficiency claims against our ballot initiatives today” and that the organization “will continue to exercise all legal options” in the challenge against the signatures.