Advocates for legalizing medical marijuana switched Wednesday from urging Nebraskans to sign their petition to begging them as a July 7 deadline looms to submit signatures to qualify for the ballot in November.
In sometimes emotional pleas at a press conference, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana said its all-volunteer signature collection effort will fail unless Nebraskans take the initiative to seek out a place to sign their petition.
“Do it for the suffering people in this state who are pleading with you,” said Crista Eggers of Omaha, as she held up a photograph of her 7-year-old son, Colton, who suffers from up to 100 epileptic seizures a day.
‘We are begging you’
“This will fail if you don’t step up. We are begging you,” said Eggers, who serves as campaign chairman for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.
The petition drive has collected about 60,000 signatures for each of its two initiatives but needs another 50,000 signatures per petition by the July 7 deadline to ensure there are enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Each petition will need about 87,000 valid signatures to qualify, according to State Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, a co-chair of the initiative.
“It’s on Nebraska to go out and find a place to sign,” Wishart said. You can go to nebraskamarijuana.org/sign to find more than 100 businesses statewide where petitions are available to sign
Click here for the complete story from The Nebraska Examiner