Marijuana Advocates Forget to File for Ballot
LAS VEGAS (AP) – An initiative to legalize pot in Nevada might go up in smoke after organizers forgot to file 6,000 petition signatures by a June 15 deadline.
Clark County (search) Registrar Larry Lomax said Billy Rogers, president of the political consulting firm seeking to qualify the petition, is pleading for him to accept the 6,000 names.
“Unfortunately, the state law says they have to turn it all in by June 15,” Lomax said.
The oversight doesn’t kill the petition outright, but drastically lessens the chances that the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana’s (search) initiative will qualify in 13 of the state’s 17 counties and thus secure a spot on the November statewide ballot.
In Clark County, organizers submitted about 35,000 signatures – but given the usual 30 percent signature error rate, probably no more than 25,000 are valid.
The extra 6,000 signatures would have increased the chances, though by no means guarantee, that the initiative would reach its goal of 31,360 valid signatures.
If the petition fails to qualify in Clark County, it must qualify in each of the other 13 counties validating signatures.
Rogers, who works for the Marijuana Policy Project (search), a Washington, D.C., lobbying group, protested to Lomax that the 6,000 signatures had been properly notarized before June 15 – even if someone had forgot to submit them.
Nevada voters in 2002 overwhelmingly rejected Rogers’ efforts to legalize up to 3 ounces of marijuana.
The new measure would amend the Nevada Constitution to legalize possession of 1 ounce of marijuana sold, licensed and regulated by the state. It also would raise penalties for driving under the influence of a controlled substance and for selling marijuana to minors.
Voters would have to approve the measure in November and again in 2006 before it could take effect.
Any comment I could make would be obvious.