‘WV Can’t Wait’ to decriminalize marijuana possession | Local News

FAIRMONT — A West Virginia group is working on a ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis.

West Virginia Can’t Wait Field Director Sarah Hutson said if enough citizen petitions are approved, and then voters pass the initiative, cannabis possession would be handled similar to a speeding ticket. Possession within Fairmont city limits would still count as a misdemeanor charge, but there would be no jail time, associated fees or court costs.

“So, that’s what the goal is, and essentially, the ordinance that we have would do. It’s commonly referred to as, ‘No fines, no time and no court costs,’” Hutson said.

West Virginia Can’t Wait is a grassroots political movement headed by Stephen Smith, who ran for West Virginia governor in 2020. Its members work to recruit, train and back “No-corporate cash candidates,” and give back to community leaders who “do the work that the government fails to do,” according to their website.

Now, they are experimenting with three municipal ballot campaigns in cities in West Virginia. In Charleston and Fairmont they are working for the decriminalization of cannabis possession and in Morgantown they are working on improving housing conditions.

In order for the ordinance to be on the ballot for the November election, Hutson and Fairmont Organizer for WV Can’t Wait Jonny Southern are working with others who are interested in the movement to create a petition. The petition has to be signed on paper by registered voters who live in the City of Fairmont. Their goal is to get 3,000 signatures, but they are only required to have 2,010, or 15 percent of the 13,402 people who were registered to vote in the last election. So far, under 100 people have signed the petition.

The reason behind the number of petition signers is written into Fairmont’s City Charter. Other cities have different rules for their municipal ballot requirements. For example, in Charleston, the goal is also 3,000 signatures. So far, they have collected over 1,000 signatures, but they only need 1,919 or 10 percent of registered voters from the previous mayoral election, Hutson said.

“It’s going really well. … In Charleston’s Charter, you do not need to pre-file to do a ballot initiative, you just start collecting signatures and then turn them in at the end.

“Whereas, here in Fairmont, you have to actually start with a committee of five people who are going to be responsible for the petition and you have to have an affidavit signed by each of them, then the city provides the format of the signature collection,” Hutson said.

Fairmont was selected as a city to test the municipal ballot initiative because WV Can’t Wait already had a really active group of organizers in Fairmont from Smith’s 2020 campaign, Hutson said.

“We didn’t really choose Fairmont, Fairmont chose us,” Hutson said.

On Thursday evening, organizers hosted a kick-off event for the initiative at Pufferbelly’s Ice Cream Station in Fairmont. Interested residents were able to read and sign the petition and discuss the best ways to get more people involved. Southern and volunteers plan to canvas events in the coming weeks to grow support for the initiative.

“I’m a musician and I’m tired of burying my friends from opioids. The opioids have destroyed generations of people in this state and this is the proven way out. … In states that have full recreational marijuana, it’s statistically proven that just use of prescription medication drops by 46 percent by the second year,” Southern said.

Southern said the goal right now is to decriminalize, but they will work to try to pass recreational cannabis usage first.

There were only a handful of people who gathered to learn about the proposal Thursday. Fairmont city planner Shae Strait said that whether it’s locally or nationally, cannabis legalization is good for communities.

“It’s safer than a lot of things that we chose to do in our leisure time already and I think it could also be a great thing for our economy — whether it’s here in Fairmont, in West Virginia or in the country as a whole. I came out tonight to continue to support change, to change the perception and to, hopefully one day, change the regulations around cannabis,” Strait said.

WV Can’t Wait hopes to expand to other cities in the future and to eventually help pass decriminalization and legalization of cannabis laws in all of West Virginia.

Hutson said the ordinance initiative is not a commonly used mechanism, but it’s something that people should take advantage of. The choice of topic is something that she said is popular with a variety of people.

“Most folks don’t want to see people go to jail for small amounts of cannabis possession, but our government does not reflect that. There’s overwhelming popularity for cannabis legalization — recreational legalization — that’s incredibly popular in the state. And our state has not done anything about it. … So we do hope that this becomes a standard that folks can get more involved in governing and find ways like this to participate more,” Hutson said.

Southern said the organization needs volunteers. For more information, you can visit their Facebook or website.