JEFFERSON CITY — Proponents of recreational marijuana legalization in Missouri have launched a campaign to place a question on the state’s November ballot.

Backers will have to move fast. To make the November ballot, the campaign Missourians for a New Approach will have to turn in more than 160,000 signatures by May.

That gives campaign workers just three full months for signature collection; a medical marijuana campaign spent much more time in 2017 and 2018 gathering signatures.

“It’s gonna be a tough timeline,” said John Payne, the campaign manager for Missourians for a New Approach.

Missourians for a New Approach on Wednesday reported a $150,000 contribution from the Washington -based New Approach PAC. Payne said that money will go toward signature collection.

He said the campaign is paying the company FieldWorks to collect signatures, the same company that collected signatures for the 2018 medical marijuana campaign.

Payne said “hundreds” of FieldWorks canvassers have already been collecting signatures for a Medicaid expansion ballot question, meaning the “capacity” to mount a serious recreational marijuana campaign is already in place, he said.