Second marijuana amendment makes Arkansas ballot; opponents consider lawsuit

The Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016 had the backing of enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. A group that has filed suit over a competing medical marijuana measure says it will consider suing over this one as well.

In a letter to sponsor David Couch, Director of Elections Leslie Bellamy said the amendment’s backers had collected 97,284 verified signatures. It was required to collect 84,859. The secretary of state previously had determined that Couch had submitted 72,309 signatures by the state’s deadline of July 8, which qualified the effort for a 30-day “cure period.”

The amendment authorizes up to 40 for-profit dispensaries and eight cultivation facilities, with the Department of Health maintaining a patient database to regulate who receives the drug, and how much. Sales tax revenues would cover the cost of regulation.

Also on the ballot will be the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act. The two differ in that it is an initiated act with the force of law, while Couch is pushing a constitutional amendment, a higher legal threshold. The Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act’s dispensaries would be run by non-profits, and it would allow people to grow their own marijuana if they live too far from a dispensary. It lists about 50 ailments that would qualify for marijuana use, while Couch’s version lists 14.

Couch said the campaign to pass the amendment will begin a couple of weeks before early voting begins. He said the campaign will focus on Arkansans’ belief that allowing doctors to prescribe medical marijuana is compassionate and will tout what he said are the economic benefits of legalizing medical marijuana. He said the group must differentiate itself from the other proposal.

He said he had seen a Utah ad saying marijuana can alleviate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among military veterans, who are committing suicide at high levels.

“We will have that kind of ad,” he said.

The campaign has raised $703,000 from two backers, the Beavins Family Trust, which owns Lake Liquor in Maumelle; and Texarkana resident Cheney Pruett’s Broadleaf PSG. Couch expects to have more backers now that the proposed amendment has been certified.

The news comes after the group Arkansans Against Legalized Marijuana filed suit Aug. 24 against the previously qualified Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act, finding fault with the ballot title and asking the Supreme Court to order Martin not to certify votes counted in favor of the act. The state’s surgeon general, Dr. Greg Bledsoe, who serves as the group’s spokesperson, said it has not decided if it will also sue over the wording of the amendment but said it will get “the same level of scrutiny” as the act.

“Certainly if we do the evaluation and we feel like the wording on this amendment and what will appear on the ballot is misleading, we just might actually sue as well,” he said, adding that a decision would be made within the next week or so.

Bledsoe said the fact there are now two medical marijuana proposals on the ballot won’t change his group’s strategy.

“The goal of our group is to get the information to the voters so that they can see what is actually in these laws,” he said.

Couch said he was confident he would win the lawsuit because his ballot title was rewritten by Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, “a very strict Republican attorney general.” On Saturday, the Democratic Party of Arkansas included in its platform a call for the development of a medical marijuana program.