Check it out, straight from the state’s website:
7/13/12 Signature verification complete. Petition contained 88,887 valid signatures, or 58.53% of the 151,870 signatures accepted for verification. Qualified to the ballot for the November 2012 Election.
Looks like circulators did a MUCH better job in the final push than early on, because the petition “throw-out” rate went down from 11.5% to a mere six percent. Well done, guys! We still have to get a vote passed, but this is still an incredible step.
I have only just seen your site and have read with interest the Article about Making Cannabis legal for personal use. We have the same problem in the UK. It is known that it is effective in helping people with Multiple Sclerosis yet it cannot be prescribed by a Doctor yet Heroin can be prescribed which does not make sense to me. I would think it would be better to fight to get it made legal for a Doctor to Prescribe it as the Doctor could give check-ups on how it was benefiting people. In the UK Heroin is a higher class drug that cannabis which is why it seems so stupid that it cannot be prescribed when Heroin can.
The reason I’m pushing for all-out legalization is because people have been fighting for medical allowances for a very long time, and gotten nowhere. And in fact in Oregon we are legal in terms of the state’s laws, but the federal situation still ends up meaning Alex can’t get a regular supply because he lives in a group home.
Additionally, with the federal crackdown even on medical marijuana lately, it’s clear they don’t want anybody to have it in any form. They use various excuses to justify these crackdowns, so I feel that our only option is to make it loud and clear: we don’t want the federal government’s involvement on this subject in any way, shape, or form.
At this point, I don’t think the U.S. federal government will allow true medical legalization. They’ll keep pushing Marinol and other synthetics / extracts rather than allowing us to use the raw plant. Even if they did allow the raw plant, they would likely have strong restrictions on the strains, who was allowed to use it, etc. Very early on, we had to use Vigabatrin semi-illegally (ordered from Canada) to combat Alex’s infantile spasms because the FDA dragged their heels so much. I just don’t trust them to do much of anything with “normal” medications much less cannabis.