Effort to Legalize Marijuana in Colorado Falls Short

Today the Colorado Secretary of State’s office announced that the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol campaign missed its mark by about 2,500 verifiable signatures. We have been tracking the progress of the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for adults over the age of 21.

Just like the initiative’s name suggests, marijuana would be taxed and regulated in a similar fashion to alcohol. The bill would also open allow cultivation, processing and sales of industrial  hemp. Last month, a random sample of those signatures that the group turned in to qualify for the ballot –  signified only about 50% of them would be valid, so they were required to do a line by line, signature by signature count according to the rules of the state.  The Campaign needed 86,105 valid signatures to make the ballot, so they turned in almost 160,000, almost assuring them a spot on the ballot, or so we thought.

Supporters of the Initiative will now have 15 days to collect the remaining 2,409 valid signatures for one last shot at qualifying for the November ballot. Mason Tvert from Sensible Colorado said that he remains confident that collecting the remaining signatures is just a very small bump in the road.

On Friday’s NORML SHOW LIVE, Tvert came on air to say that this was all part of the ballot measure process, and his group can collect that many signatures in a few days. If put on the ballot, voters in Colorado would vote to pass a regulated legalized marijuana market that would allow limited home-growing and restrict its usage to those over 21. We will let you know as this story continues to develop.

External Links:
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19885405