Weekend Poll: Will You Vote For Wyoming Pot Ballot Proposals?

It's not known yet whether they will make it on the ballot in 2022, but members of the Wyoming Libertarian Party and other supporters of changing Wyoming's marijuana laws submitted a pair of initiatives to the Wyoming Secretary of State's office on Friday.

One of the proposals would legalize the use of medical marijuana, the other would decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot for personal use. It's important to note that decriminalization is not the same as legalization.

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Decriminalization means weed would remain illegal, but people caught with small amounts would not face jail time. Most likely it would result in fines similar to those imposed for minor traffic offenses.

People caught trafficking large amounts of weed would still face criminal penalties.

It's notoriously difficult to get initiatives on Wyoming's election ballot. The Wyoming Secretary of State's Office has the guidelines posted on its website.

Doing so requires getting 15 percent of registered voters to sign a petition. But that raw number by itself does not meet the threshold:

 "(equal to 15% of those who voted in the preceding general election and signed by voters equal in number to 15% of those residents in at least two-thirds of the counties in the state, as determined by those who voted the preceding general election in that county.)"

Supporters must meet that threshold by July 31, 2022, to get it on the November 2022 election ballot.

A bill to legalize marijuana was approved in the 2021 Wyoming Legislative Session. But it did not get to the House floor in time to meet a deadline, and therefore died without the full house voting on the measure.

So--if the proposals do make it to the election ballot, will you vote for or against them? We'll publish the results of our survey next week.

We'll ask about decriminalization first. We'll do a follow-up poll on medical marijuana tomorrow.