LINCOLN, Neb. (KMTV) — It was a party of sorts outside the Capitol, as activists and supporters celebrated clearing the benchmark to get medical marijuana on the November ballot.
“Right now, it’s so difficult we have to drive to the border every time you want medicine. You have to seek out doctors in other states and this isn’t fair because there’s an imaginary line on a map,” says Shari Lawlor, a supporter of medical cannabis.
Petition gatherers had to hustle to get enough signatures, gathering over 100,00 in the month of June alone.
To get on the ballot, they needed 10 percent of registered voters in Nebraska, over 122,000.
The group says they got 182,000 signatures total, and verified that enough of those will qualify.
Multiple mothers took the stage to share their children’s story and how medical marijuana could change their lives for the better.
“Our kids have challenges but they want to be like everybody else, and this may give them the opportunity that some have never had,” says Lawlor.
While Nebraska is a conservative state, voters in other red states like Oklahoma and Arkansas recently passed medical cannabis. Supporters say it will happen in Nebraska too.
“We’re going to pass with an overwhelming majority and we’re going to secure a right for all of us to have access to something we’re entitled to as an American,” says John Carthier, a supporter who helped push the petition drive soon.
But there will be opponents, including Governor Pete Ricketts, who says marijuana should have to be regulated through the FDA, something he’s said for years.
“This petition ballot is a way to circumvent regulation. So I’d ask Nebraskans to consider that, when they’re thinking about this. There is a process these drugs can go through, that’s what this should go through, just like every other drug, should be treated just the same way,” says Ricketts.
