Coronavirus has dealt another blow to the marijuana reform movement. This time, activists in Missouri announced on Saturday that their effort to put a cannabis legalization measure on the ballot has “no practical way” of succeeding amid the pandemic.

In recent weeks, the outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in business closures and increased calls for social distancing in states across the country. That has made mass signature gathering for drug policy reform measures virtually impossible.

“Unfortunately, while there is widespread support from Missourians to tax and regulate marijuana, there is currently no practical way during the COVID-19 outbreak to safely, publicly gather the 170,000 plus signatures needed over the remaining 6 weeks to put this on the Missouri ballot in 2020,” John Payne, campaign manager for Missourians for a New Approach, said.

He added that the group is still “exploring our options at this point” but if it ultimately cannot find a path to the ballot for this November, “our supporters from every corner of this state will be back next cycle to put this on the 2022 ballot and finally bring Missouri the benefits of a safe, adult-use marijuana program.”

A total of 160,199 valid signatures from registered voters are needed in order to qualify the measure for this year’s ballot, and the campaign says it has so far collected roughly 80,000—though it is unclear how many of those have been validated. Organizers have aimed to collect more than needed in case some submissions are not accepted.

In a separate email circulated to supporters earlier on Saturday, Dan Viets, coordinator for Missouri NORML and an advisory board member for Missourians for a New Approach, said the “status of the effort to legalize adult use of marijuana in Missouri this year is unclear.”

“No official decision has yet been made regarding whether to suspend the campaign,” he said. “If we do so, it is likely we will return to pursue this goal in 2022.”

“It is, of course, virtually impossible to effectively gather signatures on petitions given the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Gatherings of more than a very few people in any one place have been banned. Almost all colleges and universities have switched to online teaching. No large meetings, conferences, or other gatherings are taking place. We should know within a very short time whether the campaign will be continuing this year or not.”

The language of the campaign messages indicates that activists aren’t entirely throwing in the towel just yet. But that’s a change of tone compared to a message sent to key organizers earlier this month by Graham Boyd, director of the national New Approach PAC, which has been a chief funder of the Missouri effort.

Boyd wrote in the March 17 email obtained by Marijuana Moment that after “much deliberation, we’re making the very difficult, but ultimately unavoidable, decision to end our 2020 adult-use legalization effort in Missouri.”

“As you can imagine, the onset of the coronavirus situation has made that already difficult process essentially impossible,” he said at the time, adding that after discussing the issue with reform campaigns in other states, it “seems likely that the situation will get much worse in many more states before it gets better.”

Since then, organizers have worked to try to salvage the effort.

Activists officially started signature gathering for the Missouri campaign in January, and they were optimistic that voters in the state would embrace the reform move. The proposed initiative would allow adults 21 and older possess and purchase cannabis from licensed retailers and cultivate up to three plants for personal use.

Additionally, it would impose a 15 percent tax on marijuana sales, with revenue going toward veterans services, substance misuse treatment and infrastructure projects. Individuals with cannabis convictions would be empowered to petition for resentencing or expungements.

Boyd stressed in his email that cancelling the campaign would be a “temporary setback” and that it’s “clear from the work and polling we’ve done so far that voters in Missouri are ready to approve a marijuana legalization law.”

Beyond Missouri, coronavirus has already proven to be a formidable presence in 2020 politics, with multiple drug policy reform campaigns having been impacted by the public health crisis.

Activists in California recently released a video asking California officials to allow digital signatures for a petition to revise the state’s adult-use marijuana program. In Washington, D.C., advocates for a measure to decriminalize psychedelics similarly wrote to the mayor and local lawmakers, imploring them to accept online signatures for their ballot petition.

Another California campaign to legalize psilocybin mushrooms is struggling and asking for electronic signature gathering to qualify for the ballot. An effort to legalize medical cannabis in Nebraska is facing similar signature gathering challenges.

In Oregon, advocates for a measure to decriminalize drug possession and a separate initiative to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic purposes have suspended in-person campaign events amid the pandemic.

Arizona activists shared some more positive news this week, however, announcing that they have collected more than enough signatures to qualify for the state’s November ballot—though they have not yet been submitted to or verified by the state.

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.