Petitioners downtown Friday for amendment ‘totally legalizing’ marijuana

Petitioners will be gathering signatures downtown on Friday for a constitutional amendment that would result in the “total legalization” of marijuana, with no age limits on its use and its removal as a substance that could get drivers charged with a DUI.

Karinda Thompson, vice president with the southwest region of the Missouri Cannabis Restoration and Protection Act, is one of the people who plans to be on Park Central Square this Friday from 6-9 p.m., where supporters will be waving signs and gathering signatures.

Thompson said they would need around 165,000 signatures to get onto the ballot, but they were hoping to break 200,000 to ensure they would meet validity requirements.

She didn’t have an exact number so far, but said she knew there had already been “thousands across the state.”

Those signatures are being gathered in the hope that a constitutional amendment proposal will be placed on the November 2016 ballot in Missouri.

Doug Burlison, coordinator with the Springfield Cannabis Restoration Community and former Springfield city councilman, said the amendment was in response to states like Colorado, where marijuana was legalized with limitations.

“You think you’re legalized, but in some situations you aren’t,” Burlison said. He said the group didn’t want a young child who could be helped by marijuana suffer because of an “arbitrary age limit.”

Additionally, Burlison said the amendment would remove laws criminalizing driving under the influence of marijuana, which he described as “essentially a food.”

“Police don’t test you for Prozac,” Burlison said. “Why should they test you for marijuana?”

Burlison said if you were negligently driving while under the influence of marijuana, you should still be charged with a crime — just not a DUI.

The amendment would remove cannabis as a controlled substance in Missouri and legalize its possession and cultivation.

It would also result in the immediate release of all people in Missouri currently incarcerated for non-violent, cannabis-only offenses that were newly legal under the amendment.

“We just want to help save lives,” Thompson said, “to help end the prohibition of this medicine.”