Over 17,000 Sign Petition to Legalize Medical Cannabis in North Dakota

North Dakota’s Compassionate Care Act Committee submitted roughly 17,600 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office Monday. The North Dakota Compassionate Care Act would legalize cannabis for medical purposes in the state of North Dakota.

Committee members must collect at least 13,500 valid signatures in order to qualify for the November 8 ballot. North Dakota’s Secretary of State, Al Jaeger, will have about a month to count the signatures. If voters pass the Compassionate Care Act, North Dakota residents will be allowed to possess up to three ounces of cannabis for medical purposes.

The Compassionate Care Act Committee is well aware of the influence of Native Americans in the Dakotas. “If they were to walk a mile in somebody else’s moccasins, they might take a different view of this. They really need to take a hard look at those attitudes,” Ray Morgan, Compassionate Care Act Committee chairman, told KFYR.

North Dakota is home to acres upon acres of tribal reservations that are considered sovereign lands. The Fort Berthold reservation alone spans 980,000 acres. In 2015, The U.S. Justice Department ruled that Native American tribes could “grow and sell marijuana on their lands as long as they follow the same federal conditions laid out for states that have legalized the drug.” Timothy Purdon, the U.S. attorney for North Dakota and the chairman of the Attorney General’s Subcommittee on Native American Issues, told the Los Angeles Times that Native American tribes who wish to legalize cannabis on their lands will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Those tribes are presumably looking at the Santee Sioux and the Oglala Sioux Nation nearby in South Dakota. The Santee Sioux legalized cannabis in Flandreau, South Dakota  and began selling cannabis to outsiders on January 1, 2016. The Oglala Sioux have grown or attempted to grow hemp for nearly 15 years.

Last year, North Dakota’s House rejected a similar measure to legalize medical cannabis. A separate recreational bill, which would have legalized cannabis for adults 21 and over failed to gather enough signatures in order to qualify. “We got about 80 percent of the signatures,” committee member Tony Mangnall said. “We all feel that most North Dakota residents, at least on this side of the state, are in favor. We’ll keep trying. We’re not giving up. We’re not out by a long shot.”