Today is the day! This is the biggest election in marijuana policy reform history, but even if you can't vote on a legalization or medical marijuana ballot initiative today, you could play an important part to make future progress possible in your state.

Before you vote, please check out MPP's voter guides if you live in the following places:

Delaware

District of Columbia

Illinois

Nebraska

New Hampshire

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

Vermont

And don't forget to tell your friends in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota to vote YES on their respective marijuana initiatives!

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Illinois has made significant improvements to its marijuana laws in recent years, but there is much work yet to be done. Despite recent gains, advocates in Illinois must ensure that elected officials continue to support positive change. You can contribute as an informed voter, and MPP wants to help.

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The first bill, HB 2835, allows adults to use low-THC cannabis oil (minors were already covered by existing law), and added “spasticity due to multiple sclerosis or due to paraplegia, intractable nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation with chronic wasting diseases” to the list of qualifying conditions, in addition to severe epilepsy. The governor signed this bill on May 13, 2016. While this is a step forward, Oklahoma law does not include a source for in-state access to low-THC cannabis, and leaves most patients behind. 

The second bill, HB 2397, increases the availability of expungement, for example by allowing the expungement of misdemeanors where the sentence was simply a fine of $500 or less.

HB 2479 also took effect Monday. It reduces the sentence for a second marijuana possession conviction by half, from a two-year mandatory minimum to a one-year mandatory minimum sentence of incarceration.

In other news, although signatures were not submitted in time for this year’s ballot, a medical marijuana provision has qualified to be on a future Oklahoma ballot. The campaign is embroiled in a lawsuit with Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a foe of marijuana policy reform, over his rewriting of the ballot summary.

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Alaska reached yet another historic milestone on Saturday, October 29, when the state’s first marijuana retailer opened in Valdez. This week, Fairbanks’ first marijuana stores open, while Anchorage’s first store is expected to open in early November.

So far, the Marijuana Control Board has approved 48 marijuana retail business applications. Many other retail business applications remain under consideration, and the review process continues. For specifics on the state program, including a calendar with important benchmarks, frequently asked questions, the most recently proposed cannabis café regulations, and training videos for applicants, click here.

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Under the proposed rules, application and licensing fees for the first 24 months would go from $12,000 to over $2.25 million! While the Texas Department of Public Safety has presented a sensible approach to regulations until now, this shocking increase is simply unknown in any other medical marijuana state. The program, already limited to low-THC cannabis for seizure patients, simply couldn’t sustain its own burdensome costs. Critically, even if it could operate, patients could not afford the medical marijuana such an over-burdened system would produce.

In addition, cultivators would also be required to comply with federal laws related to interstate transport, despite the fact that all medical marijuana is federally illegal.

State bureaucrats should not be allowed to deny access to medical marijuana to patients they are supposed to help. If you are a Texas resident, please contact your lawmakers and other public officials and tell them not to support this outrageous fee.

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Today, in a 5-2 ruling, the Arkansas Supreme Court granted a petition disqualifying Issue 7, the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act, from the ballot. Meanwhile, early voting began on Monday in the state. Thus, the ruling robs the over 140,000 voters who have already cast their ballot of the opportunity to make a complete and informed decision. Despite the court’s ruling, Issue 7 will still physically appear on the ballot for the Tuesday, November 8 election. The campaign for Issue 7 urges Arkansans to vote yes on both Issues 6 and 7.

Issue 6 offers a more limited medical cannabis program, with fewer qualifying conditions and no grow-your-own provision for patients living far from a dispensary. However, the program offers seriously ill patients the only chance at relief if votes for Issue 7 do not count. Please locate your polling place here, and vote yes on both Issues 6 and 7. Before you head to the polls, be sure to check out MPP’s presidential voter guide as well.

MPP sends condolences to the many activists who spent long hours collecting signatures campaigning for Issue 7. We are disappointed with the court’s decision, and should the initiative seek further legal remedy, we wish the campaign the best. Right now it is critical that everyone urge their friends and family in Arkansas to vote yes on both medical marijuana initiatives.

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Every year for nearly half a century, Gallup has conducted a poll to determine national support for making marijuana legal in the United States. The latest report shows the largest level of support in the history of the poll.

Gallup reports:

[caption id="attachment_10125" align="alignright" width="350"] (IMAGE: Gallup)[/caption]

With voters in several states deciding this fall whether to legalize the use of marijuana, public support for making it legal has reached 60% -- its highest level in Gallup's 47-year trend.

Marijuana use is currently legal in four states and the District of Columbia, and legalization measures are on the ballot in five more -- California, Arizona, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada -- this November. As a result, the percentage of Americans living in states where pot use is legal could rise from the current 5% to as much as 25% if all of these ballot measures pass.

When Gallup first asked this question in 1969, 12% of Americans supported the legalization of marijuana use. In the late 1970s, support rose to 28% but began to retreat in the 1980s during the era of the "Just Say No" to drugs campaign. Support stayed in the 25% range through 1995, but increased to 31% in 2000 and has continued climbing since then.

In 2013, support for legalization reached a majority for the first time after Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Since then, a majority of Americans have continued to say they think the use of marijuana should be made legal.

A Pew Research Center poll released earlier in October showed national support at 57%, which was also a record for that survey.

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The election is just three weeks away, and a number of Delaware legislative candidates are working hard to secure votes. If you are a Delaware resident, check out our general election voter guide before you go to the polls so you know where contestants stand on marijuana law reform. We also have a one pager you can take with you to the polls.

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United for Care, the Florida group campaigning to pass an effective medical marijuana ballot initiate on election day, recently announced endorsements from state and national epilepsy organizations.

Florida Politics reports:

The Florida Epilepsy Foundation has endorsed proposed Amendment 2, the medical marijuana initiative on Florida’s Nov. 8 ballot.

“Important medical decisions, such as treatments and medications, should be made by licensed physicians who know their patients best. That’s why the Epilepsy Foundation of Florida, along with the national Epilepsy Foundation, supports Amendment 2,” Karen Basha Egozi, chief executive officer of the organization, said Tuesday in a written statement.

“Florida’s epilepsy patients should have available whatever treatment options their doctors recommend, including medical marijuana,” she said.

The proposal would allow cannabis use by people “with debilitating medical conditions as determined by a licensed Florida physician.”

It provides legal protections for caregivers helping them administer the drug, subject to oversight by the state Department of Health.

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