By each and every metric, marijuana prohibition has been a dismal failure. Marijuana is the most widely utilized illicit substance and has very much moved mainstream. A strong majority wants to legalize and regulate cannabis like alcohol for all adults and a super-majority feels that it should be legal for medicinal use. It warmed my heart today to see my birth-state of Missouri move one step closer to a sane cannabis policy when I learned that the New Approach Missouri Medical Marijuana initiative is approved for circulation.
From New Approach Missouri:
We will also begin disseminating to a number of businesses and other establishments that have agreed to serve as permanent signing locations. Look for another email within the next couple weeks with information about where you can find a signing location near you. And if you own an establishment with regular hours of operation and would like to host a petition at your storefront, please email info@newapproachmissouri.com, and we will send someone to train your staff as soon as possible.
I know Missourians possess tremendous enthusiasm for this initiative. Thousands of you will make a point of signing it, and hundreds will volunteer their time to gather even more signatures. But to collect nearly 160,000 valid signatures — which will require nearly a quarter million total signatures — and ensure that this vital measure makes the ballot, we must hire a professional signature gathering firm.
That firm will not only gather many of the signatures directly, but also coordinate volunteers and validate all signatures to ensure that they are from registered Missouri voters. To accomplish all that, it will cost around $800,000, and we have to make a substantial down payment to get started.
We need your help to make that possible, so please contribute what you can now for the signature gathering effort! With thousands of grassroots supporters in our network, even relatively modest contributions add up, so whether you can contribute $5 or $500 or anything in between, you can make a difference today.
The fact that a substance that a majority of Americans feel is safer than alcohol and should be legal is still prohibited, further erodes citizens’ faith in our government. When sick and disabled patients and their providers are persecuted for cannabis, then citizens’ outrage is even greater. States across the country are moving away from the failed policy of prohibition and are instituting more reasonable laws. Each state is influenced by the next state, making Missouri very important to the national fight to end cannabis prohibition as more conservative states are unlikely to be influenced by progressive states like Oregon and Massachusetts, for instance.
Whether you live in Missouri or not, what happens in the Show-Me State reverberates across the nation. If a majority of voters in the Heartland support medical cannabis, we will add more federal officials fighting for sensible cannabis laws in Congress and more states, such as neighboring Arkansas, will soon follow Missouri’s example. Please spread the word and consider donating to this important campaign.
