A Nebraskan woman is leading the effort to put the medical marijuana issue on the November 2022 ballot. Crista Eggers’ six year old son Colton has severe intractable epilepsy and believes a medical cannabis program would help alleviate his suffering and the suffering of many other families across the state.
“This is something that is available in so many other places and unfortunately because of where people live this is something that makes parents criminals, patients criminals in order to access it,” Eggers tells KLIN News. She says a 2022 ballot campaign is now picking up steam. It’s led by a coalition of families, patients and state senators.
The group worked with legal experts and filed two separate petitions with the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office to clarify language that will hopefully prevent a repeat of 2020. Despite collecting 190,000 signatures for the 2020 ballot, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled the language violated the state’s single-subject rule and voters didn’t get a chance to have their say.
Eggers says this is an issue that touches everyone. “Whether it’s your child, your family member, your neighbor or your yourself, someday. When people’s eyes are open to that, they want to get involved.
Eggers tells KLIN they hope to start gathering signatures by the end of the month. They will been to gather roughly 250,000 signatures by the July 7, 2022. If successful the issue will be on the November ballot.
“The patients across this state who are suffering needlessly is absolutely disheartening,” Eggers tells KLIN News. “We want the right to have this be a conversation between a patient and their health care practitioner.”