The Peggy A. Kelley Wyoming Cannabis Act of 2016 will not appear on the 2018 General Election Ballot. The applicants who brought forth the effort to legalize marijuana in Wyoming were unable to collect the required 25,000 signatures by the February 14 deadline.
Frank Latta is the director of Wyoming NORML – The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws – one of the groups helping collect signatures. He said inexperience may have played a role in coming up short.
“It was a relatively new process for the people that got involved in the signature drive, and trying to get volunteers just to do this is very problematic, as you can see from the outcome,” said Latta.
Latta said they did not collect enough signatures and their efforts to get bills passed in the state legislature dealing with decriminalization or legalization have been unsuccessful, but he is still hopeful because they are at least getting more legislation heard than in past years.
“We went from introducing one or two [bills per session] to now we’re introducing five. We’ve got both parties on whether it’s Republicans or the Democrats. Are we moving forward? Boy, we’re moving forward in big big turns,” said Latta.
According to the Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center at the University of Wyoming, last year 81 percent of Wyoming residents were in favor of legalizing medical marijuana with a doctor’s prescription. Latta said going forward Wyoming NORML will continue to promote the medical uses of marijuana and the economic impacts of growing hemp in Wyoming.