The campaign behind an effort to decriminalize drugs and expand treatment and recovery services in Washington State has halted its push to qualify an initiative for November’s ballot.
Instead, Commit to Change WA told supporters in an email Monday, advocates will focus on the next year’s legislative session.
“We will not be moving forward to qualify Washington State Initiative Measure No. 1922 to the November 8 general election ballot,” the group said. “Signature gathering proved more challenging and prohibitively expensive than projected.”
“This is especially hard news for us, because we were going to win,” the email continued, pointing to new polling conducted this month indicating that 67 percent of likely Washington voters would have voted for the measure after reading the ballot language. Twenty-two percent said they would vote against it and 11 percent were undecided.
The survey, conducted by Data for Progress, found that strong majorities of Democrats and independents, along with a plurality of Republicans, back the decriminalization measure.
Looking ahead to the next legislative session, the poll also shows that 56 percent of likely voters say they are more likely to support candidates for elected office who back removing criminal penalties for low-level drug possession.
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