Public Letter From Chip Paul, Chair of Oklahomans for Health To Volunteers Across the State Monday, August 18th, 2014 Regrettably, last week, as we began to sort thru all the signature pages we have collected, it became painfully obvious that we would fall short of our goal. We have taken everything we could to the Secretary of States’ office as it is important to get a valid and actual account of what we accomplished. However, we think the actual verified (by the Secretary of State’s Office) signature count will be somewhere in the 100,000 range. This is still very significant as most states have an 8% signature burden and ours is 15%. For instance, a state of similar size to Oklahoma, Oregon, has an 87,000 signature burden. What we are signaling is that with proper organization and funding we can easily be successful. While I know this is sad and disappointing news to all of you who have worked so hard to make this happen, I would consider our effort far from a failure. On less than a shoe string budget we have been able to accomplish so much. We have elevated the discussion to the point that the Governor flipped her position on Medical Marijuana. We have broken Oklahoma single entity voter registration numbers (in fact we doubled them in some counties). We have mobilized and activated hundreds of volunteers. If we lived in Oregon we would have been successful. We have elevated the discussion. Last fall there were not that many Oklahomans with Medical Marijuana on their minds. I think every one of you who carried a petition know that Oklahomans, in vast numbers, want this and that the issue cuts across every demographic. I know each of you has worked very hard, in some cases literally hundreds of hours of volunteer efforts. If there is blame to be cast for not making our goal, that blame should rest squarely with me. While I believe we had a good plan, and we executed on that to the best of our ability, I certainly was inexperienced and somewhat naïve in launching this effort. I completely underestimated the difficulty in raising money and that lack of funds really hindered everything we were trying to accomplish. Our Oklahoma City effort was slow to come together and never fully achieved the momentum we had in Tulsa. We did not get the press coverage in Oklahoma City that we did in Tulsa. However, I have learned a lot, know what it takes, and will certainly continue to champion this issue. Oklahomans for Health will take a bit of a breather and then we will begin planning our next campaign which will take place next year….and this time we will make it. We know what works, we will be better funded, better organized, and have better planning. So, rest up, think about how we can improve our effort, stick with us on FaceBook and the websites, oklahomansforhealth and legalizeok.org, and we will continue to communicate and update everyone on plans and upcoming events. I deeply appreciate everything each of you have done. While I hoped this would be the culmination of our efforts, I now believe we have just begun. In the words of Brittany Hardy, mother of Jaqui Warrior, who has been such an integral part of our campaign, “We might have lost this battle, but we will win the war!”
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 21:00:31 +0000
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