GILLETTE — A small group of individuals gathered at Dalbey Memorial Park Saturday night in what would be the begin of a extra large-scale motion towards much less restrictive marijuana legal guidelines all through Wyoming.
This weekend, kick-off occasions have been hosted in a number of cities all through Wyoming, together with the Dalbey Park gathering in Gillette, to advertise petitions to place marijuana initiatives on the upcoming election ballots.
Earlier this summer season, two poll initiatives acquired the required 100 co-sponsors to change into licensed.
Now they’re starting the signature-gathering section. It signifies that petition papers for brand spanking new marijuana laws have begun circulating by means of Wyoming cities, in hopes of reaching the November 2022 or 2024 basic election ballots. One initiative requires decriminalization of marijuana possession, use, cultivation and switch. Its amendments to present drug laws counsel decreasing the fines and punishments for weed costs, whereas additionally growing the felony possession threshold from not more than 3 ounces to as much as 4 ounces.
The opposite requires legalization of medical marijuana.
That initiative would enable voters to approve or shoot down a plan to implement a regulated medical marijuana framework into Wyoming.
Every initiative wants to collect 41,776 petition signatures for poll placement, which is 15% of the state’s registered voting inhabitants.
Frank Latta, former Gillette mayor and marijuana advocate, was on the kick-off occasion Saturday.
He’s optimistic this marijuana motion will fare higher than previous efforts. Latta is without doubt one of the preliminary signers and has lengthy been concerned in pushing for reformed marijuana legal guidelines in Wyoming. For this present go-around, Wyoming NORML — a pro-pot group — and the Wyoming Libertarian Social gathering have joined collectively in assist of the initiatives.
“All of us are simply bored with the piddly stuff, the nonviolent stuff sending individuals to jail,” Latta mentioned. “And we expect it’s time to finish that.”
Earlier this yr, a invoice outlining a path to legalize leisure and medical marijuana was launched to the state Legislature. With 12 state representatives and two senators as co-sponsors, Home Invoice 209 was launched to the state Home of Representatives however didn’t make it to the committee of the entire for consideration. That invoice outlined a complete method to implementing each leisure and medicinal marijuana all through Wyoming.
Whereas sharing some broad similarities, the poll initiatives being petitioned for now are usually not as expansive and inclusive because the marijuana invoice shot down early in its run by means of the state Legislature.
“It is a watered down model of that. It’s one thing we’ve been attempting to work on for a very long time,” Latta mentioned. “The Legislature simply doesn’t have a whole lot of urge for food for it presently.”
Which is why pro-pot advocates are doing the legwork to convey the reformed marijuana legal guidelines to the voters straight.
In final yr’s basic election, voters in neighboring Montana and South Dakota each obtained cannabis-friendlier legal guidelines authorized, with Montana including leisure legalization plans whereas South Dakota authorized each leisure and medical.
Since then, the legalization in South Dakota has been challenged and nonetheless stays in flux.
And naturally, close by Colorado has been a pacesetter in legalizing marijuana.
Whereas Wyoming didn’t have any new laws make it by means of this yr, there have been indicators that public sentiment is shifting towards legalization.
A College of Wyoming ballot carried out in 2020 discovered that 54% of Wyomingites assist legalizing possession of marijuana and about 85% assist its use for medical functions.
To ensure the petition will get in entrance of these in favor of legalization, Latta mentioned signature-gatherers have been employed and can start going door to door all through Wyoming to get people to place pen to paper on the initiatives.
