A ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana in North Dakota has been certified for the November ballot, according to a report by the Minot Daily News.
To qualify the measure for the 2016 general election, supporters had to collect 13,452 valid signatures by July 11, 2016. Supporters collected approximately 17,600 raw signatures.
The North Dakota Compassionate Care Act, if approved by voters in November, would allow terminally and seriously ill patients suffering from certain debilitating medical conditions to use marijuana with their doctors’ approval.
The proposal would authorize state licenced medical marijuana dispensaries, or compassion centers, to provide patients with medical cannabis. Registered patients or their designated caregivers would be allowed to grow a up to eight cannabis plants if a dispensary is not available within 40 miles of their home.
Patients would be allowed to possess up to three ounces of medical marijuana.
The state Department of health would be charged with overseeing the medical marijuana program, including regulating cultivators, testing labs and dispensaries. The Department of Health would be required to issue identification cards to patients.
Public consumption of marijuana, as well as driving under the influence of marijuana, would remain illegal.
The initial qualifying conditions for North Dakota’s proposed medical marijuana program are HIV/AIDS; Hepatitis C; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease); post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); Alzheimer’s disease or dementia; Crohn’s disease or Fibromyalgia; spinal stenosis or chronic back pain; glaucoma; epilepsy; ;cachexia or wasting syndrome; severe debilitating pain; intractable nausea; seizures; or severe and persistent muscle spasms, including but not limited to those characteristic of multiple sclerosis.
The Department of Health will be given the ability to add additional qualifications under guidelines established in the proposal.
Additional information is available from North Dakotans for Compassionate Care, the organization behind the proposed initiative, either on their website or Facebook page.
The full initiative can be found here.
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