Arkansas Secretary of State approves medical marijuana Act for November ballot, Gov. Hutchinson opposes it

Arkansas voters will get at least one chance in November to vote on legalizing medical marijuana. The office of Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin on Thursday (July 7) said the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act gathered enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care submitted 117,547 signatures, with 77,516 deemed valid according to Martin’s office. For the 2016 election, 67,887 valid signatures are required to place an initiative on the November ballot.

The Act would provide Arkansans the ability to use medical marijuana for serious debilitating medical conditions with a doctor’s recommendation by allowing patients to purchase their medicine at a regulated not-for-profit dispensary. The Act calls for 38 of the dispensaries, and the process would be managed by the Arkansas Department of Health.

For qualifying Arkansans living more than 20 miles away from a care center/dispensary may grow up to five mature plants and five seedings. The cultivation area must be enclosed and locked, and will be monitored by state health officials. Also, city and county governments have the right under the Act to keep care centers out of their jurisdictions.

There is a good chance the proposed Act, which was on the 2012 ballot but narrowly failed, will gain voter approval in November. A recent Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll shows a wide margin of support for the Act. Of the 751 frequent voters surveyed on June 21, 58% supported the Act, 34% opposed and 8% didn’t know.

“Going back to the 2012 election cycle when medical marijuana first popped up on the policy agenda in Arkansas, we have polled the issue a number of times,” Dr. Jay Barth, professor of political science at Hendrix College, said when the survey numbers were made public. “Polling this week reiterates that Arkansans appear ready for the medical use of marijuana to become public policy in Arkansas as the survey shows a comfortable lead (58% to 34%) for such a measure.”

ACT SUPPORTERS TO PUSH EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
Melissa Fults, campaign director for Arkansans for Compassionate Care, on Thursday told Talk Business & Politics that she is more hopeful for voter approval because more has been learned about  medical marijuana since 2012.

“We are in much better shape this time around than we were in (20)12, because so many documentaries have come out since then about cannabis and the benefits of it,” Fult said.

However, she said the group will have an active campaign focused on getting out the vote and educating voters about their particular Act. The education, Fults admitted, will be “a struggle” if a second medical marijuana proposal makes the ballot.

The second item, pushed by Little Rock attorney David Couch, is the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016. Unlike the Act approved Thursday for the ballot, Couch’s proposal is a constitutional amendment and will require 84,859 valid signatures. The amendment would establish a minimum of 20 dispensaries to supply medical marijuana to patients, with a maximum of 40 dispensaries statewide.

Fults said the concern is that voters will be confused by the two ballot items, and the confusion often results in voters saying no to both.

“Once again, it’s all about education. We have to educate about what (our Act) says,” Fults added.

GUBERNATORIAL OPPOSITION, RESEARCH
Gov. Asa Hutchinson said his office “would take a close look at it in terms of the challenges that it would raise.” He said he would consider the source of marijuana, how dispensaries are regulated, and what it takes to qualify for a prescription for medical marijuana. He said the medical community “should be a strong voice and advise the people of Arkansas as to whether this is a good initiative.”

“Yes, I’m opposed to it because I believe that while we want to provide medicine to anyone that needs it, this opens up a lot of doors that causes more problems than it solves,” he said.

He said marijuana can already be used medicinally through the pharmaceutical drug Marinol.

“If there should be changes in it, it should be based upon recommendations from the medical community, and thus far the American Medical (Association) has not said we need to have smoking marijuana that is beneficial that outweighs its harm,” he said.

Hutchinson said opposition in a political campaign should be led by the medical community and said he had asked the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Greg Bledsoe, “to be a lead spokesperson” on those issues. Bledsoe said he is concerned about the proposal. He said the research has shown “a narrow band with which they say in certain cases with chronic pain or chronic nausea, this could possibly have a positive effect in helping people, but no medical organization or any research paper has said this should be a first-line agent.”

Meanwhile, he said no research has demonstrated medical marijuana can help some of the conditions listed on the proposal, including asthma and post-traumatic stress disorder. He said he is also concerned about the message young people could receive if the drug is legalized medically.

As for those who say they have been helped by marijuana, he said the benefits should be determined scientifically.

“There are all sorts of things that people have said anecdotally help this or that symptom, and that’s why we have a scientific method to take people from point A to point Z so that we can demonstrate which drugs are actually effective for these things, and which are just kind of anecdotal or coincidental,” he said.