The Nebraska Supreme Court has unanimously upheld Nebraska’s two voter-approved medical cannabis laws, rejecting a challenge to the petition signatures that placed the measures on the 2024 general election ballot.
The Nebraska Examiner reports the state’s highest court affirmed a Lancaster County District Court ruling that opponents failed to demonstrate that enough petition signatures were legally invalid to disqualify either initiative.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke
The 7-0 decision came in a nearly 50-page opinion written by Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke.
Former state senator and longtime marijuana opponent John Kuehn filed the challenge. It alleged misconduct involving some petition circulators and notaries and sought to invalidate enough signatures to remove the measures from the ballot.
Secretary of State Bob Evnen and attorneys from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office advanced similar arguments during the litigation.
Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong ruled in November 2024 that the challengers had not proven that enough signatures should be rejected to make either petition legally insufficient. The Supreme Court upheld that determination.
The court said that after reviewing the evidence and arguments presented by Kuehn and Evnen, the district court correctly determined they had not shown that enough signatures lost their validity to disqualify the petitions.
Measures exceeded signature requirement
Each petition needed at least 86,499 valid signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot.
The Secretary of State’s Office initially certified 89,962 signatures for the measure legalizing medical cannabis and 89,856 for the companion measure establishing a regulatory system.
Nebraska voters approved both proposals by wide margins in November 2024. More than 71% supported legalizing medical cannabis for qualified patients, while approximately 67% supported creating a regulated system. The laws took effect in December 2024.
The first law allows a qualified patient, with a health care practitioner’s written recommendation, to possess up to five ounces of cannabis for medical purposes. The second created the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission and authorized it to regulate medical cannabis businesses and products.
The commission has since developed regulations governing the state’s medical cannabis supply system. Those regulations include licensing, security and product requirements, limits on cultivation and rules governing health care practitioners who recommend medical cannabis.
Friday’s ruling resolves the challenge to the validity of the 2024 petition signatures. It is separate from another lawsuit brought by Kuehn arguing that Nebraska’s medical cannabis laws conflict with federal law.