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FORKS (NewsDakota.com) North Dakotans will likely not be voting on an initiated measure to end the state’s pharmacy ownership law this year. The group which was circulating petitions for the proposed measure has suspended its efforts.

Citing a lack of financial support for its campaign as well as a lack of petition signatures as the main reasons for its decision.

North Dakotans for Affordable Healthcare has suspended the petition drive effective immediately, spokesperson Tim Heise of Grand Forks said the group had only collected about 2,000 or 3,000 signatures from across the state to date; and had raised approximately $20,000 for the effort.

Heise said there is a good possibility the group will reorganize in 2013 for another initiated measure petition drive, and the hope would be that an initiated measure could be presented to the people of North Dakota for their approval at the ballot box sometime during the 2014 election cycle.

The group had faced a July 16 deadline to file some 16,000 signatures with the North Dakota secretary of state’s office, in order to place the initiated measure onto the ballot in this year’s general election.

The measure, had it been approved for the ballot and been approved by voters in November; would have removed the requirement in North Dakota law, that a pharmacy must be majority-owned by a licensed pharmacist. The law has been in place since 1963.