Utah Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative (2016)
| Utah Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 8, 2016 | |
| Topic Marijuana | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type State statute | Origin Citizens |
The Utah Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative was not put on the ballot for voters in Utah as an initiated state statute on November 8, 2016.[1]
Following the rejection of two medical marijuana legalization proposals in the state's 2016 legislative session, a group of medical marijuana proponents proposed this initiative.[2]
Support
The group behind this initiative consisted of medical marijuana patients and proponents. Backers of the effort included Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock; Bruce Bastian, founder of WordPerfect and Pete Ashdown, president of XMission President.[2]
Christine Stenquist, who uses marijuana to treat pain from a brain tumor, and Lindsay Sledge, who wants marijuana to be available to her epileptic daughter, helped organize the group.[2]
Referring to the official opposition of a proposed legalization bill in the legislature by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sledge said, "People are dying and people are in pain. I don't think it's any of their business."[2]
David Kirkham, a leader of the Utah Tea Party who supports the initiative, said, "I think this is an issue where the people are out ahead of the Legislature. And that's why we have a citizen's ballot."[3]
Background
Utah state legislation
Two bills designed to legalize medical marijuana in the state, Senate Bill 89 and Senate Bill 73, were introduced in the Utah Legislature in 2016. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially opposed SB 73, the proposed legalization bill most similar to this initiative.[3]
A similar legalization bill was proposed in 2015 and was defeated by a margin of just one vote in the Utah State Senate.[4]
History
As of the beginning of 2016, 23 states had legalized medical marijuana, 12 of which legalized the drug through citizen initiative.[2]
Initiatives designed to legalize recreational marijuana will be on the ballot in several states in 2016 as well. Moreover, the issue of marijuana legalization, regulation and prohibition was a key issue in many local ballot measure battles in 2016.
Polls
A survey of 624 Utah residents asked if they favored or opposed legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes.
| Utah Medical Marijuana Poll | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll | Definitely favor | Somewhat favor | Don't know | Somewhat oppose | Definitely oppose | Margin of error | Sample size | ||||||||||||
| Dan Jones & Associates November 5-14, 2015 | 35% | 26% | 2% | 11% | 25% | +/-3.92 | 624 | ||||||||||||
| Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org. | |||||||||||||||||||
The poll also indicated the following demographic-specific results:
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Path to the ballot
In order to put this measure on the November 2016 ballot, petitioners needed to gather 101,744 valid signatures—10 percent of the ballots cast by Utah voters in 2012 presidential election—by April 15, 2016. The group behind the initiative hired a professional signature-gathering firm to collect signatures for this initiative.[2] On April 12, 2016, leaders of the supporter group, TRUCE, announced that the initiative would not appear on the November ballot in Utah due to the difficulty of gathering signatures within the allotted amount of time.[5]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Utah Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ Fox 13, "Signature gathering for ballot initiative on medical marijuana could start this weekend," February 16, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Good 4 Utah, "Patients launch ballot initiative to send medical marijuana issue to the voters," February 16, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 KSL.com, "Medical marijuana supporters want to put the question to the people," February 16, 2016
- ↑ Utah State Legislature, "Senate Bill 259 (2015)," accessed February 17, 2016
- ↑ Salt Lake Tribune, "Utah medical marijuana group forgoes 2016 ballot initiative," April 12, 2016
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