Legalization of marijuana will likely appear on November ballot in Arizona
Aug 10, 2016, 4:07 PM | Updated: 4:08 pm
(AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
(AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
PHOENIX — Arizonans will likely get the chance to vote on legalizing marijuana in the state in November, the secretary of state’s office said Wednesday.
Matthew Roberts with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office said it appears a group has enough signatures in support of the measure to get it on the ballot, but the signatures have yet to be certified.
Roberts said the office is hoping to have the signatures certified by Thursday.
The Arizona Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act would legalize marijuana for anyone over 21 years old. Arizonans would be allowed to have six marijuana plants in your house, and marijuana sales would be subject to a 15 percent tax with the revenue from that going to education and healthcare.
It was believed in late June that the group — the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol — had the required 150,000 signatures to put the measure up to a vote. The group delivered the signatures to Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s office in a train of boxes.
“Some people will say it (this moment) is momentous – historic,” campaign chair J.P. Holyoak said at the time. “I don’t agree with that. This is simply the first step in a process … of ending the failed policies of prohibition.”
The measure may face an uphill battle to win in November. A July poll conducted by O.H. Predictive Insights said slightly more than half of Arizona would vote against legalization.
“Thirty-nine percent of Arizonans would approve the measure while about 52.5 percent said they would vote ‘no,’ and then you’re sitting with about 8.5 percent undecided,” Mike Noble, managing partner and chief pollster of O.H. Predictive Insights, said.
Noble said that the measure appears to be losing because older Arizonans are more likely to vote.
“They tend to be more conservative, and I don’t think they are nearly as warmed up to the idea (of legalized marijuana) as millennials or the younger generation,” said Noble.
KTAR’s Tyler Klaus and Bob McClay contributed to this report.
