Idaho officials say marijuana activists can begin collecting signatures to place a legalization measure on the 2026 ballot

Officials in Idaho this week released an official title and summary for a prospective 2026 ballot measure that would legalize personal use and cultivation of marijuana in the state. The Idaho Secretary of State also approved distribution of the petition so signature collection can begin immediately.

Organizers with the group Kind Idaho submitted a final version of the noncommercial legalization proposal earlier this month. If it appears on the ballot and is approved by voters, it would exempt people 21 and older from Idaho’s laws against “possession, production or cultivation of cannabis” as long as certain conditions are met. Marijuana would have to be “for personal use and not for sale or resale” and could not be consumed in a “public or open environment.”

The reform would apply not only to cannabis flowers, but also to products such as “oils, tinctures, gummies and other edibles,” among others. Possession would be limited to one ounce of cannabis flower or up to 1,000 milligrams of THC in other marijuana products.

A campaign email to supporters said the ownership limit was designed to allow “90% of Idahoans living within 60 miles of a pharmacy in a border town to shop out of state and with a quantity.” , which they are allowed to have in their possession, to travel home. This gives them security and does not provide an incentive to use them before returning home.

Some estimates suggest Idaho residents spend up to $4.5 million a week at “border town dispensaries” – marijuana retailers near Idaho in neighboring states where cannabis is legal – and 10 percent “at all Oregon’s legal and taxed sales per year,” email said.

Home cultivation would also be allowed under the proposal, with the number of plants limited to 12. Adults could keep up to 8 ounces of marijuana harvested from these plants as long as it is secured at home or on private property and out of reach of minors.

The proposal, which was amended this month from an earlier version to reflect feedback from the attorney general, makes clear that it would not legalize commercial activity surrounding cannabis.

“Nothing in this section,” it states, “shall be construed to authorize the private or commercial sale or resale of a controlled substance.”

Kind Idaho still has quite a bit of time to qualify the proposed measure for the 2026 state ballot, with signatures due back to officials by the end of April of this year. Organizers must collect 70,725 valid voter signatures statewide, representing 6 percent of qualified voters in the state in the last general election.

Idaho requires that campaigns also collect signatures representing at least 6 percent of registered voters in 18 of 35 precincts across the state.

The campaign currently has no plans to hire paid signature collectors.

“It’s all grassroots,” Joe Evans, the drive’s treasurer and lead organizer, told Marijuana Moment this week. Hiring professionals to distribute petitions in Idaho can cost between $4 and $8 per signature, he added, which the campaign simply doesn’t have the resources to do.

Evans said he is encouraging volunteers to familiarize themselves with the measure over Thanksgiving and the weekend and plans to begin collecting signatures in earnest in December.

People have already volunteered in a few counties, but the campaign is still looking for additional volunteers to collect signatures, notarize petitions, turn them into county clerks for validation, pick them up from the clerk and then send them to the campaign.

The new effort is a revised attempt at cannabis reform after years of unsuccessful attempts to legalize a more comprehensively regulated medical marijuana system in the state. Kind Idaho, which previously introduced medical marijuana ballot measures to be put before voters in both the 2022 and 2024 elections, is confident a narrower bill could be more palatable to voters.

A poll from about two years ago, Evans told Marijuana Moment in a previous interview, found that about 65 percent supported legalizing medical marijuana in the state and nearly 80 percent supported eliminating penalties for personal use. In contrast, only about 40 percent of respondents supported the commercial legalization of cannabis for adults.

So far, he said this week, feedback from volunteers and other supporters about the strategy change has been positive.

“They’re actually responding pretty well,” he said, noting that people have expressed that they appreciate not having to register with the state to use marijuana therapeutically and that they want the commercial cannabis industry in Idaho would not have to welcome.

“Most people are still close enough that they can benefit from legal sales in other states,” Evans said. “They do not sign up for a health insurance card and risk having various government agencies interfere in their personal and personal lives when choosing their medications.”

“It’s a nice, simple initiative,” he added. “It’s not complicated. It’s easy to understand.”

The officials’ newly issued shorthand title is as follows:

Measure decriminalize The Possession, Production, And Cultivation from marijuana And infused with marijuana Products for personal use from persons 21 or older.

The long ballot title, meanwhile, provides further details about the proposal:

The measure suggests The the possession from marijuana (or “Cannabis”) And Marijuana-infused products Be decriminalized under certainly Restrictions. To Be legally obsessed, marijuana And Marijuana-infused products must Be for personal use — not sale or resale, can not Be consumed In public or open Settings and can not Be obsessed from persons under 21 Years from Age. The marijuana obsessed must weigh fewer as an ounce And the marijuana-infused one product Possits must contain fewer as 1,000 milligram by TH.C.

The production And Cultivation from marijuana or infused with marijuana Products have The Same personal use, Location, And Old restrictions as Sentence further up. Such substances must Also Be secured “In The Main residence or further The Property of that” And “out of Access by members from The household under 21 Years from Age.” A maximum from 12 Marijuana plants or eclear ounces from infused with marijuana product may Be obsessed for production or cultivation. Behavior ouchThorized through the measure is liberated out of Punish under title 37, Chapter 27, ldaho code (Uniform Controlled substances), And out of Steer and penalties under title 63, Chapter 42, Idaho code (Illegal drug Rubber stamp Tax Act). The measure should not Be designed to enable private or private purposes commercially sale or Resale from any controlled Substance.

In 2021, a separate group of activists began collecting signatures for a similar ballot initiative that would have allowed adults to possess up to 3 ounces of marijuana on private property, although home cultivation would have been banned.

Although the measure did not make it to a vote in Idaho, the idea was that consumers could purchase cannabis in neighboring states that have legal retail stores and then bring the product back to consume privately at home.

“All we’re asking (voters) to do is accept what people were already doing: driving across the border, buying marijuana legally 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 taxpayer money arresting people in a vain attempt to stop them.”

Meanwhile, Idaho lawmakers in recent months have been considering options to further tighten the state’s marijuana ban.

A bill from Rep. Bruce Skaug (R) earlier this year, for example, would have set a mandatory minimum fine of $420 for cannabis possession, stripping judges of the discretion to impose lower sentences. Skaug said the bill, which ultimately failed in committee, would send the message that Idaho is tough on marijuana.

House Democrats also passed a bill to ban marijuana advertising, but the Senate later rejected the measure.

As for Kind Idaho’s latest medical cannabis proposal, the campaign filed initial paperwork for the initiative back in 2022, noting that the proposal was “substantially identical” to a proposal the group submitted two years earlier but also did not come to a vote.

Read the full title and summary of the proposed marijuana initiative ballot below:

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