Ballot Measures

It looks like medical marijuana will be on the 2008 ballot in Michigan. Organizers of a signature-gathering campaign for an initiative turned in nearly 500,000 signatures this week, almost 200,000 more than needed.

A week after Denver voters for the third time in as many years signaled that marijuana users should not be arrested, city officials are moving -- reluctantly -- to implement a lowest priority initiative.

For the third time in as many years, Denver voters have approved a marijuana reform measure. A lowest law enforcement priority initiative passed with 57% of the vote. Will city officials finally listen to the voters?

Three out of four marijuana reform initiatives -- medical marijuana, hemp, and lowest law enforcement priority -- won in small-town Hailey, Idaho, but a taxation and regulation initiative was narrowly defeated.

A marijuana decriminalization initiative effort got underway last Friday in Joplin, Missouri.

After a three year struggle with recalcitrant local officials, a dedicated and persistent activist has managed to get a package of marijuana initiatives on the ballot in a small Idaho town.

Oregon's medical marijuana program is 10 years old and rolling along, but it looks like it will be contested terrain next year, with one initiative already filed to repeal it and others to expand it.

A lowest law enforcement priority initiative for adult marijuana use is headed for the ballot in Denver, and local officials who oppose it are taking a beating from its proponents.

With a medical marijuana initiative effort well underway in Michigan, some drug reformers are turning their attention to a similar effort next door in Ohio.

Eleven years ago, no Americans had the protection of a state medical marijuana law. Now, some 50 million do, but that means some 250 million don't. While progress has been made, it has been slow, and there is plenty more to do.