The ‘Idaho way’: Republicans want to eliminate voters’ power to legalize weed

A measure on next year’s ballot could finally accomplish what Idaho lawmakers have tried to do for years: block voters from legalizing pot in the state.

Idaho voters next year will decide whether to approve a measure that would add to the state constitution that only the Legislature has the power to legalize marijuana, narcotics or psychoactive drugs, making it impossible for a citizen-led initiative to allow the drugs in the state.

Senate Republican leaders celebrated after they passed House Joint Resolution 4, which places the measure on the 2026 general election ballot, and said it would protect Idaho’s future and reflect the moral values held by the state’s residents.

“By placing this constitutional amendment on the ballot, the Legislature is ensuring that decisions regarding drug legalization remain in the hands of the elected representatives best equipped to assess the ongoing and evolving threats posed by drug proliferation,” they said in a statement.

The legislation is a culmination of legislators’ dislike of recent initiatives and weed, amid a growing number of states that have legalized the drug. Every state that borders Idaho has legalized pot in some form, with the exception of Wyoming. Most states have allowed recreational use, while Utah only allows medical marijuana.

“That takes the initiative process out of legalizing drugs,” Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, who cosponsored the bill, told a House committee in February. “Only the Legislature will have the power.”

Initiatives are a ‘tool’ for the public: Boise State professor

Idaho lawmakers have a history of pushing back on citizen-led initiatives.

Legislators this year passed a bill that puts more stringent requirements on qualifying for the Medicaid expansion program that the state’s voters overwhelmingly supported in 2018. The Legislature also fought in court an unsuccessful ballot initiative last year that would have created open primaries and a ranked choice voting system in Idaho. State lawmakers have fought initiatives even back in 1994, when legislators repealed a law approved by voters on term limits, according to the New York Times.

House Joint Resolution 4 was just one of several measures lawmakers have taken in the past few years to limit initiatives. This year one of the bills introduced would allow the governor to veto successful initiatives, though that bill never made it to the floor for a vote.

Direct democracy tools like the initiative are there in case the Legislature becomes a “block” against something the people want, said Stephanie Witt, Boise State University professor in the school of public service. Though initiatives have most recently been associated with liberal groups, conservatives have also used the process in the past, Witt told the Statesman.

“Giving up that power is giving away a lot of power,” Witt said. “The tool can be used by people from everywhere on the political spectrum.”

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said the bill would be “stripping the power of the people.”

“It should not be our job to stop them from doing so,” Rubel said on the House floor. “That just doesn’t feel like an appropriate role for us as supposed representatives of the people.”

Jeremy Kitzhaber, a retired U.S. Air Force sergeant who has been battling cancer, has helped craft medical marijuana bills that were introduced in Idaho for years, but has yet to garner enough support. Kitzhaber has told lawmakers about the need for alternative medication for patients like him dependent on opioids.

Kitzhaber said he’s not someone who wants to get high. He just wants to be comfortable.

“My thing on that is, it’s our right as citizens to try and put a ballot initiative together,” Kitzhaber told the Statesman. Many in the Legislature “are worried that if the people put a citizens initiative together, and it makes it on the ballot, what we have right now is nothing, and that would give us something.”

Barring drugs the ‘Idaho way,’ lawmaker says

For years, Idaho lawmakers have stated their intense opposition to pot and said a permanent prohibition would simply reflect Idaho values. Skaug called the addiction, sale and production of illegal drugs “one of the most evil things we deal with.”

Efforts to get an initiative to legalize medical marijuana on the ballot have failed every election cycle since 2012, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. But more than two-thirds of residents support legalizing medical marijuana, according to a poll commissioned by the Statesman.

It also hasn’t stopped Idahoans from using weed. In Ontario, Oregon, along the Idaho border less than an hour’s drive from Boise, the city hit $100 million in dispensary sales in 2023, according to Portland Monthly. Idahoans are a major client base for the city’s booming marijuana industry, the Statesman previously reported.

In their efforts to combat marijuana use, lawmakers have put out several proposals for new laws – including one, House Bill 271, to block the advertisement of illegal products. And Gov. Brad Little signed a bill into law to create a $300 mandatory minimum fine for marijuana possession, higher than almost every other misdemeanor, according to previous Statesman reporting.

It’s also not the first time Idaho lawmakers have tried to ban marijuana legislation in the state constitution. Republicans in 2021 introduced a joint resolution that would have put a measure on ballot asking voters to place a ban on drugs in the state constitution, according to previous Statesman reporting. That resolution failed.

The proposed amendment to appear on the ballot next year adds to a section in the state constitution that already cedes full control of liquor sales in Idaho. Back in 1933, legislators put forth a resolution that asked voters to give the Legislature the “full power and authority to permit, control and regulate or prohibit,” intoxicating liquors. Idaho voters approved it with more than 61% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia.

Rep. Josh Wheeler, R-Ammon, during debate on the floor said this year’s legislation reflects the state’s “standing as a bastion against illegal drugs.”

“This is a clear example of doing something the Idaho way,” Wheeler said.