Marijuana prohibition has failed. It's time for a new approach, and MPP is leading the way. Since our founding in 1995, we've been making real progress in reforming U.S. marijuana laws, by:
... lobbying for legislation and running ballot initiative campaigns to allow seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana with their doctors’ recommendations
... lobbying for legislation and sponsoring ballot initiatives to replace marijuana prohibition with a sensible system of regulation
... garnering widespread media coverage of the need to change marijuana policies
... lobbying Congress to reduce the White House drug czar’s budget for his deceptive ad campaigns
... building coalitions of supportive individuals and organizations to advocate on behalf of marijuana policy reform
MPP first attempted to end marijuana prohibition in Nevada with a constitutional amendment on the November 2002 ballot, which became known as Question 9. That amendment was defeated 39% - 61%.
Undeterred, we attempted to place another constitutional amendment to end marijuana prohibition on the 2004 ballot. However, the signature-gathering firm we retained, now somewhat infamously, misplaced a box of signatures instead of turning them in, setting the stage for a lengthy court battle as we attempted to get all of the signatures we gathered counted.
Unfortunately, we ultimately did not prevail in that court battle. But once the court battle ended, and with the signature turn-in deadline looming just six weeks away, we gathered more than 86,000 signatures to qualify a statutory initiative to end marijuana prohibition in Nevada, for the November 2006 ballot. The state once again maneuvered to try and force us off the ballot, and this time we prevailed in court. That initiative campaign became known as Question 7.
Question 7 lost in November 2006, 44% - 56%. Although the campaign was ultimately not successful, it was the largest Yes vote for ending marijuana prohibition in history.
You can check out the archived Yes on Question 7 site here.
After Question 7’s narrow defeat, MPP took what we learned in that campaign and spent some time honing our strategy. In April of 2009, we opened the Marijuana Policy Project of Nevada, and we remain committed to ending marijuana prohibition in Nevada. In the near future.
