Ballot Initiatives

Two separate campaigns in Arkansas have started collecting signatures to put competing legalization questions on the November ballot.

Activists in Missouri have started collecting signatures to put an adult-use legalization initiative on the November ballot; the effort is backed by the same group from the state’s successful 2018 medical cannabis push.

A ballot initiative to legalize medical cannabis in Mississippi has been approved for the state’s November ballot.

A Florida group collecting signatures for an adult-use legalization ballot initiative has called off its 2020 push; meanwhile, however, an adult-use legalization bill was filed in the legislature.

South Dakota’s Secretary of State’s office has validated a ballot initiative to legalize adult-use cannabis for the 2020 November election season.

Fearing that legalization would disrupt the existing resources that medical cannabis patients rely on, activists have withdrawn their petition for adult-use cannabis in Oklahoma.

Activists in South Dakota have successfully gathered enough signatures to put a medical cannabis legalization initiative on the 2020 ballot.

Sensible Florida, one of Florida’s two campaigns pushing to put the cannabis legalization question on the 2020 ballot, has announced the suspension of their campaign.

New Jersey lawmakers have officially approved legislation that will allow voters to decide whether or not to legalize cannabis for adult use during the 2020 General Election.

Pasadena, California has won a lawsuit against its own city clerk after they approved a successful but unconstitutional ballot initiative that would have grandfathered in dispensaries who were operating before the city’s strict licensing rules took effect.

Cannabis activists in North Dakota have submitted language for a legalization ballot initiative to the secretary of state; if approved, the group will need to collect 13,452 signatures by July 6 to put the issue on the 2020 ballot.

Two separate Florida groups have filed petitions for putting a people’s initiative legalizing adult-use cannabis on the 2020 ballot; the latest group to file a petition is backed by MedMen.

Following a rejection by voters in 2018, legalization advocates in North Dakota are maneuvering for another ballot initiative in 2020; advocates say the 2018 initiative was “too vague” for voters.

Idaho advocates are gearing up to push a medical cannabis ballot initiative to voters during next year’s general election.

Expecting another 2020 ballot initiative legalization bid, lawmakers in North Dakota plan to study the implications of adult-use cannabis regulations in the event voters there decide to embrace reform.

With lawmakers having failed to establish adult-use cannabis legislation this session, Senate President Steve Sweeney says he’s planning to put the question to voters via a ballot initiative in the 2020 general election.

Nebraska state senators have tabled medical cannabis legislation, effectively killing it, after hours of debate on the Senate floor and even after the bill’s sponsor agreed to suggested amendments limiting the program’s available products and delivery methods.

Denver voters have passed a city initiative decriminalizing the adult possession and use of psilocybin (a.k.a. psychedelic) mushrooms. It is the first successful initiative of its kind in the U.S.

Some resistance is expected but cannabis advocates believe that, given the option, voters will choose to legalize.

Five years after the birth of Colorado’s legal cannabis marketplace, the first statewide legalization “experiment” is a proven success and the dire warnings from prohibitionists have still failed to come to fruition.