The citizen initiative seeks to establish a state-regulated system of medical marijuana dispensaries where people could buy the drug if a doctor recommended its use for pain relief.
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House lawmakers voted 26-67 in February to defeat a bill to legalize medical marijuana.
The measure would legalize up to 3 ounces of medical marijuana for certain debilitating conditions.
If the group is given the go-ahead, it will need to collect 13,5000 petition signatures from North Dakota registered voters to get the initiative on the general election ballot. Under the initiative, those who qualify could obtain marijuana from a state-licensed dispensary or grow a limited, personal supply.
“Maybe it doesn’t work for everybody, but if we have 5,000 people that are suffering with pain, seizures and so forth and it works for half of them, wouldn’t that be an appropriate course of action for treatment”, said Morgan. “We want to soften it and eliminate any negative connotations”.
The National Conference of State Legislatures said 23 states have laws allowing medical marijuana.
Marijuana has not been approved as a medication by the Food and Drug Administration.
“This will be done fairly quickly”, Riley Ray Morgan, chairman of North Dakota Committee for Medical Marijuana, said of the corrections. He noted the secretary of state’s website offers a template for drafting a petition, which Morgan acknowledged he didn’t use.
Morgan, 65, is a financial adviser from Fargo who lives with chronic back pain.
A statewide initiative similar to the North Dakota Compassionate Care Act appeared on the 2012 ballot, but was ultimately thrown out by the state Supreme Court after Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger learned that a few of the signatures were forged by North Dakota State University football players hired to solicit support.
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“I testified on the floor that if we don’t approve it, we’ll get what they give us”, Anderson said. The committee also hadn’t provided an affidavit page nor did they provide pages for collecting signatures, according to Jaeger. Morgan says he hopes to have enough signatures by early next year.
