A campaign organizer for Nebraska’s medical marijuana proposal said that the campaign needs financial help as the deadline approaches to submit a petition.

Crista Eggers is the leader of the Nebraskans For Medical Marijuana petition. She stated this week that money is tight.

“I’d say devastating is an understatement,” Eggers told local television station WOWT. “We’re pleading with you to help.”

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has announced plans to distribute a petition in order to obtain two medical marijuana proposals on the September ballot. The first initiative would have required the state legislature pass laws to protect doctors who prescribe medical cannabis to patients and the patient who uses it. While the second would charge the legislature with establishing regulations for medical cannabis programs, the former would not.

Eggers expressed regret that Colton, her son with epilepsy who was born in 2007, is not able to get the necessary treatment.

“We’ve received so much encouragement from individuals all across the state, who support the many patients like our son Colton, who desperately need access to this medicine. No matter what your political background is, we should all agree that criminalizing a medicine that has the potential to alleviate suffering, is both cruel and inhumane,” Eggers said at the time. “The current policy doesn’t reflect our family values here in Nebraska, and we’re going to change that. We need everyone who believes in compassion for suffering individuals like my son to be part of this movement and help us win in 2022.”

The campaign suffered a devastating setback when a significant donor was killed in an airplane crash last month. According to the campaign, another potential donor had been diagnosed with terminal illness and was not expected to make a contribution.

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana are reeling from the grim news. Anna Wishart (Democratic state Senator) said that last month she believed that Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana could reach its $500,000 goal before May 1st.

She didn’t say how much money the group had, however, and the Lincoln Journal-Star reported last month that ““the campaign had a cash balance that was less than $30,000” as of February 28.

Each initiative will be eligible for the ballot if it has at least 87,000 circumstances. Wishart stated that each petition received approximately 25,000 signatures last month.

This week, the campaign didn’t sugarcoat its financial situation. WOWT reported that “Eggers worries that if a group of donors doesn’t come forward in the next week and inject the campaign with a million dollars to hire professional signature collectors, she’ll be forced to move to a state where her son, Colton, who suffers from uncontrollable seizures, is able to get medical cannabis.”

“Every night I tell my child and others that we will get this done. And to think that we’re falling short, I don’t know what that means. It means my family is going to the other side. You can take one of your children and send it to another place, but you cannot leave the other here. That’s not fair,” she told the station.

“If what we needed was grit, and drive, and determination, we have that,” Eggers added. “Our campaign would be done and over if that’s what we needed. But unfortunately, the one thing our campaign doesn’t have – and has to have – is money.”

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana thought this year would be their chance to redeem themselves. The group tried to put forward a medical cannabis initiative for 2020, until it was blocked by the Supreme Court.