Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown announced last Friday [11] that an initiative campaign to allow state licensed medical marijuana dispensaries had handed in enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot. An initiative that would impose mandatory minimum sentences on repeat felony sex offenders and drunk drivers also qualified for the ballot.
Under current Oregon law, patients or caregivers can grow their own, and caregivers can grow for up to four patients. But patient advocates have complained for years that the lack of a dispensary system has meant patients unable or unwilling to grow their own and who do not have a caregiver have had to resort to the black market or go without their medicine.
The initiative isn't officially qualified for the ballot just yet. It will be official on August 1, the deadline for verification of ballot initiatives. While it could theoretically be challenged between now and then, no such challenges have appeared on the horizon.
The initiative will not be known as I-28 on the ballot. It will be assigned a measure number on August 1.
The initiative is sponsored by Voter Power [13], the same folks who successfully sponsored the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act initiative in 1998.