Nebraska Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Legalization At The Ballot Amid Legal Challenges

Nebraska voters approved a pair of medical marijuana legalization ballot measures on Tuesday—even as the two complementary initiatives to enact the reform sit in legal limbo amid court challenges from opponents.

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM) turned in more than 114,000 signatures for each of their proposals in July. If ultimately enacted despite the ongoing legal challenges, they will require lawmakers to provide statutory protections for qualified patients to possess and use cannabis if they obtain a doctor’s recommendation, while setting up a commission to create a regulatory framework for a state medical marijuana program.

This marks the third time the campaign has attempted to let voters decide on medical cannabis legalization in recent years. Advocates have faced repeated setbacks in their push for cannabis reform in prior election cycles, but they’ve finally succeeded, notwithstanding the uncertainty caused by pending litigation.

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An earlier campaign gathered enough signatures for ballot placement in 2020, but the measure was invalidated by the state Supreme Court following a single-subject challenge. Supporters then came up short on signatures for revised petitions in 2022 due in large part to the loss of funding after one of their key donors died in a plane crash.

What Initiative 437 and 438 will accomplish:

• The first of the two current ballot initiatives from the campaign will require lawmakers to codify protections for doctors who recommend cannabis and patients who purchase and possess it.
• The patient-focused measure says that its aim is to “enact a statute that makes penalties inapplicable under state and local law for the use, possession, and acquisition of limited quantities of cannabis for medical purposes by a qualified patient with a written recommendation from a health care practitioner, and for a caregiver to assist a qualified patient in these activities.”
• The other initiative will create a new a Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to provide “necessary registration and regulation of persons that possess, manufacture, distribute, deliver, and dispense cannabis for medical purposes.”

What polls said about voters’ preferences:

Nearly 6 in 10 registered voters favored legalizing medical marijuana at the ballot next month, according to a poll released last month. Another third said they opposed to the policy change, while fewer than 1 in 10 remained undecided.

2024 campaign:

John Kuehn, a former Republican state senator and former State Board of Health member, filed a lawsuit over whether the campaign’s collected signatures were valid. Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R), despite initially certifying the signatures, has also raised concerns.

A state district judge has since rejected a motion in the case to prevent votes from being counted. But the underlying legal questions have not yet been resolved, so the fate of the measures remains in question and they could still potentially be overturned.

Meanwhile, Nebraska officials themselves, including the state attorney general’s office, have been accused of witness tampering in a separate case alleging malfeasance by petition collectors.

A state judge made clear last month that the legal disputes might not be resolved until after Election Day.

An analysis by Vicente LLP, a leading cannabis-focused law firm, found that the state could see medical marijuana patient registrations exceed 56,000 by 2028 and 93,000 by 2030. That would translate into more than $152 million in medical cannabis sales by 2030 and over $925 million in new economic activity—including jobs and revenue—by the end of that year, the firm said.

Volunteers had been petitioning since last July, about two months after turning in the pair of complementary legalization initiatives to the secretary of state’s office.

Gov. Jim Pillen (R) has voiced opposition to the reform effort, saying last year that legalization “poses demonstrated harms to our children,” and that medical cannabis should only be accessible if its approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Past legislative Nebraska cannabis reform efforts:

Nebraska lawmakers, including NMM campaign co-chair Sen. Anna Wishart (D), have also attempted to enact the reform legislatively, but cannabis bills have consistently stalled out in the conservative legislature.

Wishart’s medical cannabis bill received a hearing in the unicameral Judiciary Committee last year, but it did not advance. She attributed the inaction to changes in committee membership. An earlier version of the measure ultimately stalled out in the GOP-controlled legislature amid a filibuster that supporters could not overcome.

Meanwhile, two adult-use cannabis legalization bills also received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee in August ahead of a special session convened by the Republican governor.

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Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.