September 9, 2026
On Friday, September 4, 2026, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Lancaster County District Court and upheld both 2024 medical cannabis initiatives. Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke wrote for a seven-member court in Kuehn v. Evnen, 322 Neb. 161. The district court's counts stand: 89,251 valid signatures on the Legalization Petition and 89,030 on the Regulatory Petition, against a threshold of 86,499. Two years after former state Sen. John Kuehn sued to keep the measures off the ballot, the courthouse is closed to the question — and the bottleneck has moved to the Medical Cannabis Commission's fee rulemaking, which comes up at its September 14 meeting.
The challenge, joined by Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Attorney General Mike Hilgers, rested on Barkley v. Pool, 103 Neb. 629 (1919), a circulator-fraud case holding that a circulator's misconduct can strip the presumption of validity from every signature that circulator gathered. Kuehn and the Secretary asked the court to extend that rule to notaries: if a notary improperly notarized some pages, every page that notary touched should lose its presumption.
The court declined. Weighing "the differing roles of circulators and notaries and the comparative evidentiary value of a circulator's affidavit and a notarization," Funke wrote, the district court "did not err as a matter of law" in refusing to find that all pages notarized by a given notary lost their presumption of validity "based solely on improper notarization of one or more petition pages." The court also found no error in Judge Susan Strong's refusal to draw adverse inferences from campaign workers' invocation of the Fifth Amendment in the civil trial. Justice William Cassel concurred, joined by Justice John Freudenberg, to say that proof of pervasive notarial failure or a scheme to defraud could justify requiring proof of signature validity — but that the record here did not reach that level. Justice Stephanie Stacy concurred separately to question whether pre-election challenges of this kind should be entertained at all.
What the court did not do is bless the program's design. The opinion is about signatures and the presumption of validity. It says nothing about product forms, license counts or timelines. Those live in the Commission's regulations.
Hilgers, who has called the campaign fraudulent for two years, said in a statement that his office disagrees "but will follow the law as it stands." Gov. Jim Pillen's office said the Commission "will continue to carry out its work." Both had already signed off on the Commission's regulations, which took the force of law in July.
The practical constraint was never the lawsuit. It is money. The Legislature authorized the Commission to charge fees in the 2026 session, and on July 20 the Commission released a draft that would set a $5,000 application fee, license fees by type — $20,000 for a new cultivator or product-manufacturer license, $15,000 for a dispensary, with annual renewals of $23,500 and $18,000 — a $13,000 seed-to-sale tracking fee, a $1,500 relocation fee and product-licensing fees. Commissioners voted 3–0 to approve the fee schedule pending review by the Commission's new in-house attorney. Until a fee rule is adopted, no new licenses issue. The Commission's regulations allow four cultivators, four product manufacturers and twelve dispensaries arranged by judicial district; all four cultivators are licensed, one is approved to grow, and the Commission has not said when the first manufacturer or dispensary licenses will be granted. The next meeting is Monday, September 14, at 1 p.m. in Lincoln.
Nebraska is now the counter-example to the two ballot-measure cases every cannabis investor cites. In In re Initiative Measure No. 65 (May 14, 2021), the Mississippi Supreme Court threw out a voter-approved medical cannabis initiative on a procedural ground — the state's initiative process required signatures from five congressional districts and Mississippi had only four — and the Legislature had to re-enact medical cannabis by statute the following year. In Thom v. Barnett (November 24, 2021), the South Dakota Supreme Court struck Amendment A, the adult-use measure, for violating the single-subject rule; medical cannabis survived because it had been passed separately. Nebraska's sponsors split their effort into two petitions after a 2020 loss on similar grounds, and that structure held. For anyone pricing initiative risk in Massachusetts' 2026 ballot fight, the lesson is that drafting discipline, not signature volume, is what survives review.
Nebraska also joins a crowded licensing calendar. Rhode Island's restarted retail round closes its social-equity window on September 11, and Illinois' medical opt-in window for existing dispensaries opens this week. Federally, the rescheduling docket is awaiting a recommended decision with no deadline; what Schedule III would mean for a new medical-only program is covered in medical versus recreational after rescheduling. Nebraska's cannabinoid rules for hemp products remain on the state grid: THCA in Nebraska, delta-8 and hemp delta-9, with the national picture in the state-by-state cannabinoid guide and the multistate policy tracker. The federal hemp deadline that did not move for most states is mapped in our state-by-state hemp deadline guide.
| State | Measure | Court and date | Ground | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nebraska | 2024 Legalization and Regulatory Petitions (medical) | Nebraska Supreme Court, Sept. 4, 2026, 7–0 | Notary defects do not void every page a notary handled; no adverse inference from Fifth Amendment invocations | Upheld; program proceeds to fee rulemaking |
| Mississippi | Initiative 65 (medical) | Mississippi Supreme Court, May 14, 2021, 6–3 | Initiative process unworkable after congressional districts fell from five to four | Struck; Legislature re-enacted medical cannabis by statute in 2022 |
| South Dakota | Amendment A (adult use, hemp, medical) | South Dakota Supreme Court, Nov. 24, 2021, 4–1 | Single-subject rule: three distinct subjects in one amendment | Struck; separately passed medical measure survived |
Is medical marijuana legal in Nebraska?
Yes. The 2024 Medical Cannabis Patient Protection Act and the Medical Cannabis Regulation Act were upheld by the Nebraska Supreme Court on September 4, 2026, in Kuehn v. Evnen.
What did the Nebraska Supreme Court decide in Kuehn v. Evnen?
That improper notarization of some petition pages does not, by itself, void every page that notary handled, and that the trial court properly declined to draw adverse inferences from Fifth Amendment invocations. The district court's signature counts — 89,251 and 89,030 against a 86,499 threshold — stood.
When will Nebraska medical cannabis dispensaries open?
No date has been set. The Medical Cannabis Commission is adopting fee regulations before issuing new licenses; its next meeting is September 14, 2026. Four cultivators are licensed; no dispensary has been.
Can Nebraska's legislature repeal the medical cannabis initiative?
Initiative statutes can be amended by the Legislature within Nebraska's constitutional limits, and no repeal bill is pending. The Legislature's 2026 action was to authorize Commission fees, not to narrow the program. Talk to your counsel about the current rules.
This is regulatory journalism, not legal advice — talk to your counsel.
On Friday, September 4, 2026, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Lancaster County District Court and upheld both 2024 medical cannabis initiatives. Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke wrote for a seven-member court in Kuehn v. Evnen, 322 Neb. 161. The district court's counts stand: 89,251 valid signatures on the Legalization Petition and 89,030 on the Regulatory Petition, against a threshold of 86,499. Two years after former state Sen. John Kuehn sued to keep the measures off the ballot, the courthouse is closed to the question — and the bottleneck has moved to the Medical Cannabis Commission's fee rulemaking, which comes up at its September 14 meeting.
The challenge, joined by Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Attorney General Mike Hilgers, rested on Barkley v. Pool, 103 Neb. 629 (1919), a circulator-fraud case holding that a circulator's misconduct can strip the presumption of validity from every signature that circulator gathered. Kuehn and the Secretary asked the court to extend that rule to notaries: if a notary improperly notarized some pages, every page that notary touched should lose its presumption.
The court declined. Weighing "the differing roles of circulators and notaries and the comparative evidentiary value of a circulator's affidavit and a notarization," Funke wrote, the district court "did not err as a matter of law" in refusing to find that all pages notarized by a given notary lost their presumption of validity "based solely on improper notarization of one or more petition pages." The court also found no error in Judge Susan Strong's refusal to draw adverse inferences from campaign workers' invocation of the Fifth Amendment in the civil trial. Justice William Cassel concurred, joined by Justice John Freudenberg, to say that proof of pervasive notarial failure or a scheme to defraud could justify requiring proof of signature validity — but that the record here did not reach that level. Justice Stephanie Stacy concurred separately to question whether pre-election challenges of this kind should be entertained at all.
What the court did not do is bless the program's design. The opinion is about signatures and the presumption of validity. It says nothing about product forms, license counts or timelines. Those live in the Commission's regulations.
Hilgers, who has called the campaign fraudulent for two years, said in a statement that his office disagrees "but will follow the law as it stands." Gov. Jim Pillen's office said the Commission "will continue to carry out its work." Both had already signed off on the Commission's regulations, which took the force of law in July.
The practical constraint was never the lawsuit. It is money. The Legislature authorized the Commission to charge fees in the 2026 session, and on July 20 the Commission released a draft that would set a $5,000 application fee, license fees by type — $20,000 for a new cultivator or product-manufacturer license, $15,000 for a dispensary, with annual renewals of $23,500 and $18,000 — a $13,000 seed-to-sale tracking fee, a $1,500 relocation fee and product-licensing fees. Commissioners voted 3–0 to approve the fee schedule pending review by the Commission's new in-house attorney. Until a fee rule is adopted, no new licenses issue. The Commission's regulations allow four cultivators, four product manufacturers and twelve dispensaries arranged by judicial district; all four cultivators are licensed, one is approved to grow, and the Commission has not said when the first manufacturer or dispensary licenses will be granted. The next meeting is Monday, September 14, at 1 p.m. in Lincoln.
Nebraska is now the counter-example to the two ballot-measure cases every cannabis investor cites. In In re Initiative Measure No. 65 (May 14, 2021), the Mississippi Supreme Court threw out a voter-approved medical cannabis initiative on a procedural ground — the state's initiative process required signatures from five congressional districts and Mississippi had only four — and the Legislature had to re-enact medical cannabis by statute the following year. In Thom v. Barnett (November 24, 2021), the South Dakota Supreme Court struck Amendment A, the adult-use measure, for violating the single-subject rule; medical cannabis survived because it had been passed separately. Nebraska's sponsors split their effort into two petitions after a 2020 loss on similar grounds, and that structure held. For anyone pricing initiative risk in Massachusetts' 2026 ballot fight, the lesson is that drafting discipline, not signature volume, is what survives review.
Nebraska also joins a crowded licensing calendar. Rhode Island's restarted retail round closes its social-equity window on September 11, and Illinois' medical opt-in window for existing dispensaries opens this week. Federally, the rescheduling docket is awaiting a recommended decision with no deadline; what Schedule III would mean for a new medical-only program is covered in medical versus recreational after rescheduling. Nebraska's cannabinoid rules for hemp products remain on the state grid: THCA in Nebraska, delta-8 and hemp delta-9, with the national picture in the state-by-state cannabinoid guide and the multistate policy tracker. The federal hemp deadline that did not move for most states is mapped in our state-by-state hemp deadline guide.
| State | Measure | Court and date | Ground | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nebraska | 2024 Legalization and Regulatory Petitions (medical) | Nebraska Supreme Court, Sept. 4, 2026, 7–0 | Notary defects do not void every page a notary handled; no adverse inference from Fifth Amendment invocations | Upheld; program proceeds to fee rulemaking |
| Mississippi | Initiative 65 (medical) | Mississippi Supreme Court, May 14, 2021, 6–3 | Initiative process unworkable after congressional districts fell from five to four | Struck; Legislature re-enacted medical cannabis by statute in 2022 |
| South Dakota | Amendment A (adult use, hemp, medical) | South Dakota Supreme Court, Nov. 24, 2021, 4–1 | Single-subject rule: three distinct subjects in one amendment | Struck; separately passed medical measure survived |
Is medical marijuana legal in Nebraska?
Yes. The 2024 Medical Cannabis Patient Protection Act and the Medical Cannabis Regulation Act were upheld by the Nebraska Supreme Court on September 4, 2026, in Kuehn v. Evnen.
What did the Nebraska Supreme Court decide in Kuehn v. Evnen?
That improper notarization of some petition pages does not, by itself, void every page that notary handled, and that the trial court properly declined to draw adverse inferences from Fifth Amendment invocations. The district court's signature counts — 89,251 and 89,030 against a 86,499 threshold — stood.
When will Nebraska medical cannabis dispensaries open?
No date has been set. The Medical Cannabis Commission is adopting fee regulations before issuing new licenses; its next meeting is September 14, 2026. Four cultivators are licensed; no dispensary has been.
Can Nebraska's legislature repeal the medical cannabis initiative?
Initiative statutes can be amended by the Legislature within Nebraska's constitutional limits, and no repeal bill is pending. The Legislature's 2026 action was to authorize Commission fees, not to narrow the program. Talk to your counsel about the current rules.
This is regulatory journalism, not legal advice — talk to your counsel.
