New economic frontier, which is behind the push to legalize marijuana in North Dakota, said on Tuesday that the Campaign had collected enough signatures To to bring the initiative to the vote in November, reported Marijuana Moment.

The deadline to submit signatures to the state is Monday, July 8.

“After months of hard work and incredible support from the community, we are ready to submit our collected signatures to the North Dakota State Capitol,” New Economic Frontier said in an email on Tuesday.

Chairman Steve Bakkena Burleigh County commissioner and former mayor of Bismarck, said last week that the signatures so far have been self-validated.

“Once we know the bill is coming to a vote, there will be opportunities to talk about what cannabis can do for North Dakota from a legal and policing perspective,” Bakken said, according to the Minot Daily News. “There are a lot of different aspects to this, and it's critical to give the public the information they need to be able to make their own decision as a voter.”

Also read: Hospice patients in North Dakota must self-certify for medical marijuana after governor signs bill

Campaign organizers said in June that the initiative was close to reaching its goal. “With 15,179 signatures collected so far, we are approaching our goal of 15,582 signatures required,” which represents 2% of the state's population, the campaign said in a press release.

But a new poll found that most North Dakota voters don't want legal marijuana legislation. Specifically, 57 percent of respondents said they opposed recreational cannabis reform, while 43 percent favored it, according to a survey of 500 likely voters conducted by Opinion Strategies on behalf of the Brighter Future Alliance.

Under this measure, private recreational use of marijuana at home would be legal for adults over the age of 21. The measure also proposes to create a regulatory framework for the production and processing of cannabis, as well as for prohibited uses.

Bakken said the group behind the legalization campaign wants to avoid the “Wild West” that other states have experienced after passing similar laws, nor does it seek “unrestricted recreational legislation in North Dakota. It is very important to us that the state be able to regulate, monitor, license and tax it as it sees fit.”

Previous efforts in 2018 and 2022 to legalize cannabis for recreational use in North Dakota failed.

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