Nebraska voters would decide whether to legalize marijuana under proposed constitutional amendment

January 8, 2021
AggregatedNews
Nebraska
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Nebraska voters would be asked to legalize marijuana for all Nebraskans 21 and older under a proposed constitutional amendment introduced Thursday in the State Legislature.

If state lawmakers advanced the proposal — which seems unlikely — the issue would appear on the ballot in 2022.

The legislative proposal, from State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, comes as an advocacy group seeking legalization plans to collect signatures that, if enough were collected, would also allow voters to decide whether to legalize cannabis for both medical and recreational use.

The group, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, had collected enough signatures to put medical marijuana on the ballot in November. But two months before that, the State Supreme Court tossed the issue off the ballot, ruling that it violated the Nebraska Constitution’s requirement that ballot initiatives stick to a single subject.

The disqualification prompted the group to try again, but this time to seek voter approval of both medical and recreational marijuana. In November, neighboring South Dakota became the first state in the nation in which voters approved both uses of marijuana at the same time. [Read more at Omaha World-Herald]