Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Medical marijuana advocates said they are nearing the goal to get the issue on the ballot in 2016.
In an email to supporters Monday, United for Care, the group behind the ballot effort, said the state’s supervisors of elections need to validate 45,823 petitions in order to hit the goal of 683,149 to get on the November ballot.
According to the organization’s website, about 1.1 million petitions were collected, and 646,924 of those have been validated.
“I am confident we have turned in enough petitions to make the ballot by deadline next week — and once we do, we are almost certainly going to be Amendment 2 again,” United for Care campaign manager Ben Pollara wrote in an email.
In his email to supporters, Pollara said in order to get 60 percent this year, the organization needs to “gear up and make sure we have enough funds to do statewide advertising for weeks, and make sure voters in every market know why they should give doctors the right to recommend what’s best for their patients.”
People United for Medical Marijuana, the political committee that runs the United for Care Campaign, raised more than $571,000 in December.
The constitutional amendment would allow the medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating medical conditions.
In 2014, a similar constitutional amendment got 58 percent of the vote, just shy of the 60 percent needed for a constitutional amendment to pass.
