Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Nebraska

All cannabis products are said to be illegal in Nebraska including medical use of cannabis. It had Idaho and South Dakota for company until recently in this dubious record, but the people of South Dakota decided to do something about their situation instead of waiting for lawmakers and through ballot measures legalized both medical and recreational cannabis in one go at the end of 2020. That leaves just Nebraska and Idaho as two states where cannabis is restricted the most in a US that is witnessing a green wave of cannabis legalization like never before as it rises from the injustices of decades of cannabis prohibition .

The British pharma company GW pharmaceuticals is said to be moving towards trying to gain a monopoly over CBD products in the state which seems to be in slumber while the rest of the US awakens once again.

At least 35 US states have legalized cannabis for medical use so far. The federal US government however continues to keep cannabis in the Schedule 1 list of banned substances saying that it has no medicinal value. The list of US states that have legalized adult recreational cannabis is available here. All these states have legalized cannabis for adult recreational use, aimed specifically at improving public health, ensuring equity, reducing crime, decreasing the black market, improving law enforcement, reforming criminal justice, improving the economy, agriculture and industry, to name just a few reasons.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'Campaign co-chair, Nebraska State Senator Anna Wishart, said: “We are confident that we’ve met the requirements for ballot qualification, and after seeing the outpouring of support for our petition, we’re even more confident that Nebraska’s voters will approve this initiative in November.”

Advocates began recruiting volunteers for the ballot initiative effort in 2019 after multiple legislative efforts to legalize medical marjuana in the state failed to gain enough support from lawmakers and Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts. The Governor received an ‘F’ grade from NORML in its 2020 Gubernatorial Scorecard. In a 2020 position paper, he wrote, “I firmly oppose legislative legalization and will veto any legislation that attempts to make marijuana use lawful in the Cornhusker State.”'
https://norml.org/blog/2020/07/02/nebraska-activists-submit-over-182000-signatures-to-qualify-proposed-2020-medical-marijuana-ballot-initiative/

'“In the six states surrounding Colorado—Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming—following Colorado’s legalization, the border counties experienced, on average, a decrease of 393.1 cases of property crime and 277.3 cases of larceny per 100,000 population relative to the nonborder counties.”

“Specifically, we observed that the property crime rate and larceny rate experienced substantial decreases in the border counties in neighboring states relative to nonborder counties following the legalization in Colorado,” the study says. “This is also true for the rate of simple assault…if Utah is not considered (only considering Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming as neighboring states of Colorado).”
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/colorados-marijuana-legalization-law-decreases-crime-in-neighboring-states-study-finds/