Group won’t petition to legalize marijuana in Nevada this year

CARSON CITY -- Nevada won't be a state where the Marijuana Policy Project embarks on a petition drive this year to let voters decide whether to legalize marijuana.

Morgan Fox, the spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based pro-marijuana organization, said Tuesday that its finances are limited and that efforts to legalize marijuana will be made in Colorado, not Nevada.

"We could try again in 2014 (in Nevada), but nothing has been decided yet," he said.

Nevada had been the policy project's go-to state for drives to legalize marijuana. In 2006, 44 percent of state voters backed its initiative to allow adults legally to use an ounce or less of marijuana. In 2002, 39 percent of residents supported a similar imitative.

But in 2010, the Marijuana Policy Project failed to secure enough signatures to put a legalization proposal before voters.

In Colorado, Fox said, the group has obtained sufficient signatures to put a legalization proposal on the ballot. It wants marijuana to be regulated like alcoholic beverages, with dispensaries where it can be bought. Taxes would be assessed on the substance.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.