Melissa Fults: Let Patients Have Access To Cannibas And Its Health Benefits

Editor’s note:  Melissa Fults is Arkansans for Compassionate Care’s campaign director of the Arkansas Medical Cannibas Act. She can be contacted at [email protected]. Her guest commentary appears in the latest magazine edition of Talk Business Arkansas, which you can access here.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care (ACC) began in April 2010 with an approved ballot initiative called Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act. In the 2012 election, it lost by a narrow margin of less than 2 percent.

In January 2013, ACC went back to the table to try to make a better initiative than before, to add more patient protections and to ensure better wording. After several months of discussions and conferences with attorneys that specialize in medical marijuana reform, ACC submitted the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act.

Let’s take a look at some of the key points of the new initiative.

First, the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act is self-funding. All sales tax collected on cannabis sold will go to pay for the program first. Any surplus will be divided equally between the Arkansas Department of Human Services for drug education and the Arkansas Umbilical Bank, an excellent program where parents can donate their newborn’s umbilical cord to be used for research and also for creating stem cell injections.

With the program being self-funded, we are able to put a maximum of $50 per year for patient registry identification cards. Without this maximum being set, patient registry identification cards could skyrocket and become unattainable by many patients.

Designated caregivers will have a registry identification card to guarantee their protection from prosecution. Caregivers will be allowed to care for a maximum of five patients and will have the same protections as patients.

Our affordability clause will guarantee that EVERY patient in the state can afford their medical cannabis. Low-income patients will be put on a sliding scale to guarantee their medicine is affordable.

Another important part of our plan is our hardship clause. Although there will be very few patients that will qualify for this program, we added it to ensure access to those patients living in sparsely populated areas that are unlikely to have a dispensary. If a patient lives too far for a dispensary to deliver (typically about 25 miles) and can show health or transportation issues that prevent them from getting to a dispensary, they will be allowed to grow three mature plants and three seedlings. These patients will be subject to inspection of their grow area at any time during regular business hours by the Arkansas Department of Health. This guarantees that no patients will be growing more than allowed.

These key changes will allow for a much stronger law and more protections for patients.

At this point ACC and its volunteers are working diligently to acquire the needed 62,507 signatures. The coming months will be critical in the effort to obtain these signatures. By the time you are reading this, we will have held statewide Compassion Days in April as a signing push. We set up booths throughout the state to make it easier for people to sign the petition and make their voice heard.

This is not a party issue, it is not a conservative/liberal issue, it is not a religious issue. It is a MEDICAL issue. So much research is surfacing, proving the medical qualities in cannabis. Whether a patient is suffering from cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV/AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), multiple sclerosis, seizures or other debilitating illnesses, studies are showing that cannabis can have a very positive effect on their treatment.

Israel is leading the research in the amazing healing properties of cannabis, and it is time for the United States to allow research here.

The laws are changing one state at a time and 2014 is Arkansas’ time. Patients across the state are suffering needlessly. Many families have already had to leave their homes and move where their loved ones can have access to cannabis legally, and many more will have to leave if our laws don’t change.

How do you explain to a parent whose child suffers from at least 200 seizures a day that there is a potential medicine that can lower that number and, in many cases, stop them all together, but it is illegal to use? Instead they have to depend on strong, dangerous medication that does no good and actually can cause more harm.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care came so close in 2012. The fight continues, and we hope that 2014 will be the victory that so many patients have waited for so long.

For more information about ACC and its efforts, visit www.arcompassion.com.