Well, that didn’t take long. Nebraska’s medical cannabis program is yet to be fully implemented and now there’s a petition initiative to legalise cannabis generally in the state.
After a couple of failed attempts, Nebraska voters gave their thumbs up to two medical cannabis initiatives – Initiatives 437 and 438 – on November 5, 2024. Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed proclamations that the ballot measures were law the following month. One measure concerned legalizing medical cannabis possession and the other establishing a commission to regulate how it is used and accessed.
While medical cannabis businesses will likely not open in Nebraska until next year, there’s a move already underway to get legal recreational cannabis on the 2026 ballot.
In a petition sponsor sworn statement submitted to the Nebraska Secretary of State on July 31 and August 18, it states:
“The object of the Nebraska Cannabis Initiative Petition is to amend the Constitution of the State of Nebraska by adding a new section 32 in Article I which states that all persons twenty-one years of age or older have the right to use all plants in the genus Cannabis.”
It’s a very simple object that would cover hemp and marijuana.
The sponsor is Bill “Farmer Bill” Hawkins, who has been a hemp advocate for many years. Mr. Hawkins is the director of the Nebraska Hemp Company, which is described as a nonprofit formed to research, educate, and reason with citizens to determine cannabis reform and laws.
It’s not the first time the Nebraska Cannabis Initiative has been put forward for the state ballot. An identical initiative was filed on August 18, 2022 for the 2024 ballot, but the campaign did not submit a sufficient number of signatures by the deadline. In that attempt, approximately 123,465 signatures were gathered.
Under Nebraska law, the number of signatures need to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot is equal to 10 percent of registered voters, and there’s a distribution requirement mandating petitions contain signatures from 5 percent of the registered voters in each of 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties.
