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After spending years trying unsuccessfully to qualify medical marijuana legalization initiatives for the ballot in Idaho, organizers are shifting their focus to a slimmed-down noncommercial cannabis legalization proposal, which they’ll attempt to put before voters in 2026.
The campaign Kind Idaho, which introduced medical marijuana ballot measures intended to go before voters in both the 2022 and 2024 elections, discussed the pivot with Marijuana Moment after announcing to supporters last month that they’d failed to collect enough signatures to qualify the latest proposal.
“We basically found that we didn’t have the resources necessary to continue to push it in the way that we needed to, and we weren’t getting the response and the support we needed from the community,” Joe Evans, the campaign’s treasurer, said.
Kind Idaho collected about 20,000 signatures, Evans said. Roughly 70,000 validated signatures were needed to qualify the initiative.
Idaho has among the most restrictive state marijuana laws in the nation, with simple possession punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. As for CBD products, they must be completely free of THC—even those with trace amounts, such as the 0.3 percent THC allowed in federally legal hemp products, are considered illicit marijuana in Idaho. Additionally, cultivation of even a single cannabis plant constitutes a felony.
Despite nearly 2 in 3 Idahoans in support of medical legalization, said Evans, citing polling data from about two years ago, the campaign ran into both resource limitations as well as pushback on some elements of the medical measure.
For one, the latest initiative proposal was “seven pages, front and back,” he said, which meant not only that it cost several dollars just to print each signature-gathering form but also that it could be unwieldy to explain to voters when gathering signatures.
“It covered an entire medical program,” Evans said, describing it as a “wall of text” being presented to would-be supporters about the role of the state Department of Health and Human Services, the procedure for adding new qualifying conditions to the program and other details.
Voters were also concerned about state registration for medical patients under the program, which Evans said raised worries relative to gun ownership, child custody, privacy and other rights that might be affected by medical marijuana registration.
“You know, what government watch list are you willing to get on in order to be able to use your medicine?” Evans said. “Are you willing to give up your guns to do it? Because that’s a real risk.”
Many people using marijuana in Idaho would rather “keep going across the border and buying recreationally,” he added, “and no one needs to know.”
The neighboring states of Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington all have legal adult-use marijuana, while medical marijuana is legal Utah.
The same two-year-old poll that showed majority support for medical legalization in the state showed even stronger backing for decriminalization, with about 8 in 10 voters in favor. After a representative from the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project suggested Kinda Idaho consider that path instead, the campaign decided to pivot.
Under the planned changes, Evans said, “we’re able to make the entire bill, the decrim initiative, a single page.”
“We don’t have to go through the issue of creating a medical program,” he explained. “We don’t have to put a burden upon the medical field here in the state of Idaho by making them supervise quantities and qualities and dosages and all of that. We don’t invite the industry—whether medical or recreational marijuana—into the state, because we’re not actually legalizing resale. We’re just saying you can grow your own and you can be in possession of it, as long as you’re not planning on reselling it.”
While details of the new proposal are still being hammered out—the campaign plans to formally present the would-be initiative in the coming weeks—the idea is to remove all criminal and civil penalties around marijuana consumption, possession and home cultivation for personal use. People would not be allowed to use cannabis in public, but they could carry up to either 1 ounce or 3 ounces on their person—a limit still being finalized by organizers.
Commercial legalization of marijuana for adults, by contrast, had only about 40 percent support in the earlier poll. “They don’t want it sold here,” Evans said of Idaho voters. “They just don’t want people getting arrested for it.”
Kind Idaho plans to formally submit its new proposal to the secretary of state’s office on September 17, triggering a roughly monthlong review period. Barring any major procedural hiccups, the campaign says it should be able to begin gathering signatures on November 1.
Organizers will then have about 18 months to gather the roughly 70,000 valid voter signatures to put the measure on the 2026 ballot.
Evans, a military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the noncommercial legalization measure is aimed at aligning “patient advocacy, survivor advocacy and even criminal justice advocacy.”
“We’re able to reduce the signature that cannabis has in our criminal justice system as well as be able to facilitate for our patients and survivors who need it in order to get the assistance and help they need,” Evans said, noting that about 6 in 10 people in state custody were put behind bars for drug offenses.
“Now, admittedly, not all of those are marijuana,” he added. “But this is one of those things [where] we can reduce the number of cannabis users who, through the process, acquire a police record.”
In 2021, a separate group of activists began gathering signatures for a similar ballot initiative that would have allowed adults to possess up to 3 ounces of marijuana on private property, though home cultivation would have been prohibited.
Though the measure didn’t make Idaho’s ballot, the idea was for consumers to be able to buy cannabis in neighboring states that have legal retail operations and then bring back the product to be consumed privately at home.
“All we’re asking [voters] to do is to accept what people were already doing: driving across the border legally purchasing marijuana and bringing it home to smoke,” organizer Russ Belville said at the time. “If Idaho still wants to give away the tax money, that’s fine. But we shouldn’t spend more tax money trying to arrest people in a futile attempt to stop them.”
Lawmakers in Idaho, meanwhile, have in recent months weighed ways to further tighten the state’s prohibition on marijuana.
A bill from Rep. Bruce Skaug (R) earlier this year, for example, would have set a $420 mandatory minimum fine for cannabis possession, removing judges’ discretion to apply lower penalties. Skaug said the bill, which ultimately stalled in committee, would send the message that Idaho is tough on marijuana.
House lawmakers also passed a bill to ban marijuana advertisements, though the Senate later defeated the measure.
As for Kind Idaho’s latest medical cannabis proposal, the campaign submitted initial paperwork for the initiative back in 2022, noting that the proposal was “essentially identical” to one the group filed two years earlier but which similarly failed to make the ballot.
Here’s what the proposed ballot initiative would have accomplished:
Allow access to cannabis for registered patients with chronic diseases or conditions, or for people with a terminal illness who doctors say have less than a year to live. Fees for one-year registration cards could not exceed $100.
Allow qualified patients or caretakers to possess up to four ounces of marijuana, defined as all parts of the cannabis plant, including derivatives, containing “any of the chemical substances classified as tetrahydrocannabinols, (THC).
Enable patients or their caregivers who qualify for a “hardship cultivation designation” to grow up to six cannabis plants in an enclosed, locked facility. Hardship designations would be granted based on financial hardship, inability to travel to a dispensary or the lack of a dispensary near a patient’s home.
Qualify patients with cancer, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, hepatitis C, ALS, Chron’s disease, Alzheiemer’s disease, PTSD, inflammatory bowel disease, Huntington’s disease or Tourette syndrome. Patients would also be eligible with any medical condition or treatment that produces cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, or persistent muscle spasms. Further qualifying conditions could be added by regulators, including in response to a petition from any Idaho resident.
License medical marijuana retail dispensaries, production facilities, and safety compliance facilities. Applications would be evaluated based on a ranked scoring system, and facilities could not be located within 1,000 feet of schools.
Establish a 4 percent excise tax on cannabis sales to patients or caregivers. After covering the costs of the program, half the remaining proceeds would go to the Idaho Division of Veterans Services, and the other half would flow into the state’s general fund.
Empower the Department of Health and Welfare to license and regulate the state’s medical marijuana program, requiring it to adopt rules within 120 days of the measure becoming law.
Cities and counties could also set their own zoning ordinances and regulations.
Allow medical marijuana cardholders from other states to access the program.
Prohibit certain forms of discrimination against cannabis patients, or others involved in legal cannabis conduct, in education, housing, state and local gun laws, medical care and employment. Under state law surrounding discrimination, marijuana would be treated similarly to prescribed pharmaceuticals.
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.
“}]] After spending years trying unsuccessfully to qualify medical marijuana legalization initiatives for the ballot in Idaho, organizers are shifting their focus to a slimmed-down noncommercial cannabis legalization proposal, which they’ll attempt to put before voters in 2026. The campaign Kind Idaho, which introduced medical marijuana ballot measures intended to go before voters in both the Read More