Nebraska coalition seeking to legalize medical cannabis delivers nearly 50,000 petition signatures  

June 9th, 2020 | Chris Cottrell

 Total represents more than half of required signatures to place measure on November ballot 

 Signature gatherers had to overcome many obstacles, including COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, civil unrest/curfews

 ADOPT, a broad coalition of Nebraskans who support access to medical cannabis, announced today that it has delivered nearly 50,000 validated petition signatures to its petition ally, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM). The signatures were collected by ADOPT this spring.

When ADOPT’s efforts are added to NMM’s existing total of more than 10,000 validated signatures, the petition effort is over halfway to the more than 120,000 signatures needed for the Nebraska Secretary of State to place this constitutional amendment initiative petition on the Nov. 3 General Election ballot.

“We are proud of our success in gathering tens of thousands of petition signatures in support of letting Nebraska vote on legalizing medical marijuana,” said ADOPT spokesperson Michael J. O’Hara. “Despite the great obstacles of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, civil unrest and curfews, our petition gatherers did a super job. Clearly, the people of Nebraska want to vote on this important health care issue.”

Utilizing paid and volunteer gatherers, ADOPT began collecting signatures in early March and promptly was forced to suspend collection operations after the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in state and local executive orders closing many public and private venues for health reasons.

When restrictions were eased in early May, ADOPT – through its vendors – returned to collecting signatures using public health social distancing and hygiene guidelines. The local unrest and related public curfew orders further hampered signature gathering. In all, ADOPT signature gatherers were only able to fully deploy for 31 days between March and June.

The signature gathering deadline is July 2.

“Building on ADOPT’s great efforts, we hope the other groups gathering signatures will be able to complete the process by continuing to collect signatures through June,” O’Hara said. “We are glad we have been able to make this substantial contribution toward bringing this much needed medical relief to suffering Nebraskans. We want to thank all our supporters and all the many brave men and women who risked their health gathering signatures to get us this far.”

With this delivery of its signatures, O’Hara said ADOPT is suspending operations.

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