Legal Marijuana Now Party

Background The Minnesota Grassroots Party was formed in 1986 as a response to Ronald Reagan's war on drugs. The party's name, according to Yippie Oliver Steinberg, a Grassroots Party founder, is attributed to Dan Vacek saying to him, if you want every vote to be a referendum, every vote to be indisputable evidence that there’s a voter who wants legal marijuana, "then call it the Legal Marijuana Now Party." Expansion to other states Nebraska expansion The Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW Party petitioned to be recognized as a major political party. To make the ballot, Legal Marijuana NOW Party needed valid signatures equal to at least one-percent of the total votes cast for governor in 2014, or 5,397 signatures statewide. In July, 2016, volunteers turned in 9,000 signatures to the Nebraska Secretary of State. However, the Secretary of State said that half of the signatures were invalid, verifying only 4,353 signatures and falling short of the 5,397 needed. After failing to make it onto Nebraska ballots in 2016, the party began circulating petitions for 2020 ballot access for a Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW Party in September, 2016. The party planned to collect 15,000 signatures for their second attempt at gaining ballot access. ==State party activity==

Minnesota In 2014, Dan Vacek ran for Minnesota Attorney General as the Legal Marijuana Now! candidate and got 57,604 votes, qualifying the party to be officially recognized and to receive public funding from the state. Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! nominated candidates by petition to appear on the ballot for the November 6, 2018 election. Their candidate for State Auditor, Michael Ford, received 5.3% of the vote qualifying the party to be an official major party in the state. This gave Legal Marijuana Now! candidates ballot access without having to petition. In 2020, the Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! candidate for United States Senator extended ballot access for the Minnesota party through 2024 by receiving 190,154 votes, more than any other such third-party candidate in the U.S. During the 2020 election campaign, Democratic Party leaders said that the Legal Marijuana Now Party made it harder for Democratic candidates to win in Minnesota. A St. Cloud Times analysis of votes cast in the 2020 general election in Minnesota found that Legal Marijuana Now! candidates might have helped DFL candidates in swing districts, by pulling a larger number of votes from Republican candidates. Tim Davis, who was Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! Party chair at the time, was the party's 2022 State Auditor nominee. To qualify for a share of the state's elections funding intended to help regular Minnesotans run for office, Davis raised $6000 before the July deadline, meeting State requirements to publicly report his fundraising income and campaign expenditures. Davis used the $28,000 Minnesota subsidy to print and distribute pro-cannabis legalization campaign fliers door to door, across the state. Davis got 87,386 votes in the November 2022 State Auditor race, short of the 5% threshold to major party status needed for extending Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! Party ballot access through 2026. Paula Overby was nominated by Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! Party, in 2022, to run for U.S. Representative from the 2nd congressional district. Overby, an information technology director, had previously been nominated by Legal Marijuana Now! for the 2nd district, in 2020, after candidate Adam Weeks' untimely death. Overby's platform included marijuana legalization and universal Medicare. On October 5, 2022, Overby died during recovery in a hospital following emergency surgery for a heart valve condition. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon stated that Overby's name would remain on the ballot, and the election would go ahead as scheduled. Without remedy for replacing their deceased nominee, under state law, Legal Marijuana Now! Party encouraged supporters to cast their votes for Overby. The dead candidate got 10,728 votes in the race. Scholars have credited the work of Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! with motivating the state Democratic Party to prioritize cannabis legalization, in 2023. In 2024, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Legal Marijuana Now! no longer qualified for major party ballot access under a 2023 law passed by the Minnesota Legislature, and LMNP candidates would be required to petition during the two week filing window in May. Edina, Minnesota author Anthony Walsh, who had launched an independent LMNP campaign for United States Representative a year earlier, was denied by Minnesota Secretary of State Simon for not having the 1,000 signatures needed by June 4, so Walsh instead ran a 2024 write-in campaign for Congress in CD-3. Nebraska On April 21, 2021, Legal Marijuana NOW gained official recognition as a state political party in Nebraska, earning the party ballot access for their candidates, and allowing Legal Marijuana NOW Party to register voters. Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW Party ran more candidates for statewide offices, in 2022, than the Nebraska Democratic Party recruited. Larry Bolinger was nominated by Legal Marijuana NOW to run for Nebraska Attorney General in 2022. Bolinger, who previously had run for a seat on the Alliance Planning Commission, focused his campaign on legalization of marijuana and expanding drug courts. In the 2022 race, Bolinger received 188,648 votes, more than 30 percent, the highest percentage for a statewide Nebraska candidate running outside the two major parties in 86 years, when independent George Norris was reelected to U.S. Senate, in 1936. Bolinger, who was one of the top three independent and third party vote-getters in the U.S. in 2022, held the Nebraska record until Dan Osborn received 46.5% for United States Senator, in 2024. Nebraska LMNP held a U.S. Senate primary on May 14, 2024, between Kerry Eddy and Kenneth Peterson. Eddy, the winner of the primary, withdrew from the race in July and endorsed independent candidate Osborn over anti-cannabis incumbent Republican senator Deb Fischer. No LMNP presidential candidates were recognized for the 2024 Nebraska primaries by Secretary of State Bob Evnen, despite the party being ballot qualified in Minnesota, which had held their presidential primary in March. At an online meeting of Nebraska party officers including Mark Elworth Jr. held in June, independent presidential candidate Cornel West was endorsed for 2024 Nebraska ballots. In 2025, Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW Party surpassed 10,000 registered party voters, giving LMNP candidates Nebraskan ballot access indefinitely. ==U.S. presidential candidates==

2016–2020 In 2016, Legal Marijuana Now placed their presidential candidates, Dan Vacek and Mark Elworth, on the ballot in two states, Iowa and Minnesota, and as a write-in candidate elsewhere. Vacek finished tenth out of 31 candidates for president nationwide. 2024 U.S. presidential elections The Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now! primary was held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Twenty Minnesota presidential delegates to the national LMNP convention were awarded proportionally by the primary results, at the state party convention in Caledonia held on May 8. 2024 Minnesota presidential primary 2024 national convention Because Minnesota is more populous, the state's delegates awarded to Richfield businessman Dennis Schuller and Reyes based on the March Minnesota primary results outnumbered the Nebraska delegation which had earlier been pledged unanimously to Cornel West by Nebraska party leaders. The national LMNP convention held in Bloomington, Minnesota on July 6 nominated Schuller and running mate Reyes for the party's presidential ticket, and the 2024 LMNP write-in campaign was certified in several states. ==Electoral history==

Minnesota federal and statewide office electoral history 1998—2016 2018—2022 Nebraska federal and statewide office electoral history 2016 U.S. presidential election ==Platform==

The Legal Marijuana Now Party's platform centers around marijuana legalization, including hemp legalization. It has also advocated broader anti-drug prohibition policies including abolishing the Drug Enforcement Administration and banning employee drug testing. ==Structure and composition==

Movement Grassroots organizations are associated with bottom-up rather than top-down decision making. The Legal Marijuana Now Party seeks to engage ordinary people in political discourse to the greatest extent possible. Leadership All decisions on important organizational and financial subjects must be reached by a leadership Head Council, which consists of Legal Marijuana Now Party members with at least three consecutive years participation in the party and officers elected by the members at an annual convention held in July. Rudy Reyes became party chairperson in 2024. State and local chapters ==See also==