Thursday, June 24, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA: Error puts initiative in jeopardy

Organizers forgot to turn in box containing 6,000 signatures

Billy Rogers Leader of petition drive urges acceptance of forgotten signatures

An initiative seeking to legalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana in Nevada could go up in smoke.

Petition organizers last week announced that they had submitted sufficient signatures to qualify the petition for the November ballot.

However, Billy Rogers, president of the political consulting firm seeking to qualify the petition, subsequently discovered a box of about 6,000 signatures that no one remembered to turn in.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said Rogers contacted him by phone Saturday asking whether he could turn in the box, which contains signatures that were notarized before the June 15 deadline to submit initiative petitions.

"He was pleading with me that they forgot to turn it in," Lomax said. "Unfortunately, the state law says they have to turn it all in by June 15."

The oversight does not necessarily spell doom for the petition, but the mistake dramatically narrows the petition's margin for error.

The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana must qualify in 13 of the state's 17 counties to secure a spot on the November statewide ballot.

Each county requires a specific number of valid signatures.

Officials did a raw count and determined that marijuana petition organizers filed a sufficient number of signatures in 14 counties. However, officials must determine how many of those signatures are valid.

"The record shows that, as a general rule, 70 percent of the signatures turn out to be valid," said Steve George, spokesman for the secretary of state's office. "The rest turn out to be duplicates or people who aren't registered or people who aren't registered in that county."

In Clark County, organizers submitted about 35,000 signatures in support of the marijuana petition. The minimum number of valid signatures required to qualify for the November ballot is 31,360.

If the petition fails to qualify in Clark County, it would have to pass muster in each of the other 13 counties validating signatures.

"They're pretty close in several other counties, and they're really cutting it close," said Renee Parker, chief deputy secretary of state.

Jennifer Knight, spokeswoman for the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, deferred questions to Rogers.

Rogers would not comment Wednesday.

On Monday, he sent Lomax a letter saying the signatures that organizers forgot to submit were notarized properly before the June 15 deadline, even though they were not discovered until Saturday.

"Your refusal to accept signatures gathered prior to June 15, 2004, may disenfranchise voters who signed the petition prior to June 15, 2004," Rogers wrote. "It is our position that a remedy exists during the raw count stage of the petition drive and during the verification stage to accept the signatures and ensure that all who signed the petitions are covered."

Rogers said the petitions in question are being stored in the law offices of Ross Goodman, a son of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. Ross Goodman was not available for comment Wednesday.

Rogers, who runs the Southwest Group, has said his petition drives have a higher-than-average success rate because his paid petition gatherers stress the accuracy of the signatures at the street level.

Rogers works for the Marijuana Policy Project, which is based in Washington, D.C. The group lobbies state legislatures on issues such as medical marijuana and marijuana legalization.

A spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project said he was aware of the situation with the ballot qualification process in Nevada, but he referred questions to Rogers.

"I don't have any relevant details," Bruce Mirken said. "It's something obviously that we're interested in."

Nevada is still hyped nationally as being the first state with good potential to legalize marijuana, in part because of the state's liberal initiative petition laws and also because voters already have approved the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

However, voters in 2002 overwhelmingly defeated an effort to legalize up to 3 ounces of marijuana. The vote was 61 to 39 percent.

This year's petition seeks to amend the Nevada Constitution to legalize possession of 1 ounce of marijuana sold, licensed and regulated by the state. It also increases penalties for driving under the influence of a controlled substance and for selling marijuana to minors.

If it qualifies for the ballot, voters would have to approve it in November and again in 2006 before it could take effect.