Indeed they have. The people who bankrolled the successful medicinal marijuana campaign in California have targeted a half-dozen additional electorates this year. Critics of any sort of liberalization say the straighter image is calculatingly deceptive. It makes them harder to fight. The compassion argument is very compelling.
Nobody wants to look like they're denying help to cancer patients.
Using legislation that lets fewer people grow less pot than allowed under California law, the Santa Monica-based Americans for Medical Rights and its local allies last week turned in enough signatures to get on the Alaska ballot this November and likely will accomplish the same thing in Maine in the next two weeks, spokesman David Fratello said. The group is awaiting final approval in Colorado of petition language aimed at changing the state constitution. It is in the process of drafting petition language in Washington state, Oregon and Nevada. It also is weighing whether to pump some cash into a local initiative in Florida. They were principal backers of the California initiative, a successful one that followed in Arizona and the broad medicinal drug referendum defeated in Washington state last November.