Missouri Marijuana Legalization Push Comes to An End

The Missouri marijuana legalization push has ended for the 2012 cycle because the required number of signatures was not met. Petitioners were able to collect 65,000 signatures, but this was less than half of the number that was necessary to put the matter up to a vote on the November ballot. Thus, a seemingly impossible run for legalization in the conservative state of Missouri has ended before it even began.

Did the old cliche occur? When it came time to vote, a bunch of potheads just spent their time on the couch. If only there was a way to tell the exact cause of the lack of signatures then the petitioners would be better able to run a campaign in 2012. However, any barometer of the vote would surely find that there were several systemic problems with this attempted legislation. A lack of support base compared to other states who have only came close to legalization. A short period of time to gather supporters together into a signature gathering coalition. A substantial lack of advertising and organization. An inability to adequately mobilize a campaign due to the sparseness of the Missouri terrain. With such little time and so few volunteers, it seems that canvasing the entire state of Missouri proved too much of a task.

Failure this round does not signify defeat for the petitioners because it appears that there will be another chance in 2014. Perhaps the lessons learned from this run will yield greater success in the 2014 season.

I think one of the most significant problems that plagued this initiative was its focus and lack of petitioner cohesion. The initiative sought to fully legalize marijuana in a climate that is not exactly warm to the idea. Instead legalization should have came with a sister initiative creating medical marijuana reform, something that more people tend to be on board with. In fact, Columbia, MO and a small southwest town of a few dozen have passed laws allowing medical marijuana for patients. If the legalization initiative had been coupled with a medical marijuana bill, the results may have been much different.

Furthermore, without the accompanying medical marijuana bill, there will be no beta test of legal marijuana use in the state of Missouri. Instead, during the 2014 season the state and its voters will lack crucial information about how legalized use of marijuana affects the state. It will be another season with an initiative to allow a substance that is banished in all other areas of the law.