Democratic bills to legalize the recreational use of marijuana have gone nowhere at the Arizona State Legislature, but advocates say their main strategy has always involved the ballot box.

The Marijuana Policy Project, the Washington, D.C.-based group behind the effort that legalized medical marijuana in Arizona, plans to begin collecting signatures in late April to get the issue before voters in 2016.

While an effort to make the 2014 ballot foundered, Carlos Alfaro, Arizona political co-director for the Marijuana Policy Project, said there is a larger coalition for legalization this time around, in part because Washington and Colorado have done so.

“Law enforcement, parents, students at Arizona State and beyond – all the other universities in the state are going to be crucial to this,” he said. [Read more at Cronkite News]