Ruling on Nevada marijuana petition won't be appealed

Associated Press

Nevada's attorney general won't appeal a recent federal court ruling that lets backers of a petition to ease state marijuana laws present their initiative to the 2005 Legislature.

"We're just going to move forward and not fight it," Joshua Hicks, senior deputy attorney general, said Wednesday, referring to U.S. District Judge James Mahan's decision last Friday.

Mahan ruled in favor of the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marijuana Project. That enables the committee to present its petition to the 2005 Legislature, which convenes Monday.

The Legislature has 40 days to approve the petition. If it doesn't, it will go on the 2006 election ballot.

In deciding Secretary of State Dean Heller set the number of required petition signatures too high, Mahan cited a precedent established when Heller qualified a medical malpractice petition for the ballot in 2002, and to a petition guide Heller's office gave to signature-gatherers last year.

The decision also affects the Nevada Clean Air initiative petition. Supported by the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association, it seeks to limit smoking in public buildings.

A third petition, with less restrictive anti-smoking rules, is supported by casinos and bars.

The petition guide from Heller's office said backers needed to submit 51,337 signatures, based on 10 percent of the voter turnout in the 2002 election.

Proponents of the clean air petition submitted 64,871 valid signatures on Nov. 9 - a week after the 2004 election. Advocates of the marijuana proposal submitted 69,261 signatures, and the casinos' smoking petition had 74,348 signatures.

Heller, acting on state Attorney General Brian Sandoval's advice, decided the Nov. 2, 2004, general election had become the yardstick for signatures, and said the petitions needed 83,156 valid signatures.