An initiated act aimed at legalizing medical marijuana has been cleared for the Nov. 8 general election ballot, but the proposal faces opposition from three fronts - the backer of a competing constitutional amendment, a conservative organization and the governor.

The Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act received enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot, Melissa Fults, campaign manager for Arkansans for Compassionate Care, said in an interview Thursday. Kerry Baldwin, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, confirmed that the group did meet the signature threshold. It is the first initiated proposal to clear that hurdle; today is the deadline for submitting petitions for a general election ballot proposal.

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LITTLE ROCK (AP) - A proposal to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas qualified for the November ballot on Thursday, putting the issue before the state's voters for the second time in four years.

The secretary of state's office said it had verified at least 77,516 of the more than 117,000 signatures submitted for the proposed initiated act by Arkansans for Compassionate Care were from registered voters.

Initiated acts need at least 67,887 signatures, while constitutional amendments need at least 84,859. Friday is the deadline for groups to turn in signatures for their ballot measures.

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At Something More Important Than Football

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened." - Winston Churchill

GOODNESS, how many proposals about marijuana could be on the ballot come November? Talk about poor choices in an election. What is it about 2016? If the presidential election might require many of us to hold our noses when we vote, if any more marijuana proposals get on the ballot in Arkansas, somebody might have to hand out gas masks at the polls. If for nothing else than to avoid contact highs.

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Rx Push for Ballot 1st With Signatures

Backers of an initiated act to legalize medical marijuana became the first group this year to submit signatures for a ballot proposal when they delivered petitions to the Arkansas secretary of state's office Monday.

The petitions, bearing about 117,000 signatures, were submitted almost three weeks ahead of the July 8 state deadline. The next step is for validation by the secretary of state's office; 67,887 signatures from at least 15 different counties are needed for an initiated act to land on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

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Tremendous Opportunities for Union County Health

EL DORADO - Benton Police Capt. Kevin Russell told the audience at Tuesday's TOUCH Coalition meeting that the hazards of legalized marijuana outweigh the pro-ported benefits.

"I became involved in this issue about five years ago and have studied it extensively," said Russell, a 17-year veteran of Arkansas law enforcement.

A recent FBI Academy graduate and member of the Benton Police Department, Russell has made it his mission to inform and educate Arkansans on the effects seen in states following the legalization of marijuana on their youth and communities.

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Sen. Tom Cotton's logic for his statement that the U.S. didn't have enough people in prison was that all the murders and assaults have not been solved, so there should be more people in jail. Yes, if those crimes were solved there would be more people in jail, but that is no reason, whatsoever, for people with drug problems to be in jail. If anything, it begs for leniency for those incarcerated for nonharmful crimes because then there will be more room in prisons when police do solve all those cold cases. Which also brings up the point that if police were not so busy chasing after minor offenders of our failed drug war, they would have more time to solve the cases of murder and assault.

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Voters heading to the polls today will be asked to sign petitions on marijuana and term limits.

Of the 12 ballot measures -- initiated acts and constitutional amendments -- approved for the 2016 ballot by Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and her predecessor, Dustin McDaniel, five are active, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette survey.

Of those five, petitioners will collect signatures for at least three ballot measures during the primary: The Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act, The Arkansas Hemp and Cannabis Amendment, and the Arkansas Term Limits Amendment of 2016.

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LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has again rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Arkansas.

The proposal by Mary Berry of Summit seeks to legalize the cultivation, production, sale, possession and use of the cannabis plant and all products produced by the cannabis plant, including marijuana.

Rutledge said in her rejection letter Tuesday that there are ambiguities in the text of the proposal and that a number of additions or changes are necessary.

This is the sixth time the attorney general has rejected the proposal because of ambiguities.

Rutledge has approved a separate proposal to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas submitted by Little Rock attorney David Couch. Supporters of that proposal need nearly 85,000 signatures from registered voters to put it on the ballot this fall.

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Taboos about drugs are lying shattered across the U.S., like broken debris after a party. But even as some states have begun to decriminalize or legalize marijuana, there is an argument that is making some Americans hesitate.

They ask: Aren't many drugs, even pot, much more potent today than they were in the 1960s when the boomers formed their views on drug use? Hasn't cannabis morphed into super skunk? Aren't people who used legal painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet sliding into heroin addiction, suggesting that legally accessible drugs are a slippery slope toward the abuse of harder drugs?

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The reason I wrote to the editor instead of the attorney general's office is because Attorney General Rutledge may tell me I was using the wrong words in my letter, especially if it has to do about legalizing marijuana.

It seems every time the issue comes up for the ballot, she doesn't like the wording. And I wanted to make sure she would read my letter. I hope she understands this.

She's worried about letting the people who have been charged or convicted on marijuana out of jail. Let's see, prisons are full. Jails are full, and every day, you read about possession of a controlled substance and paraphernalia, and they won't even tell us it's pot. They say if it's meth or cocaine, but not pot? I think they are embarrassed because of what they're doing or how stupid it is to lock people up for it. All this talk about more jails, not enough beds at the prison. Can you understand these words, Attorney General Rutledge?

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Yet Another Study Shows ...

"Back in 2012, Arkansas voters turned down a ballot proposal to allow for the use of medical marijuana in the state. But only barely. The proposal failed with 49 percent of the vote for, 51 agin. That made a lot of folks nervous. With a vote like that, the idea of medical marijuana wasn't killed in Arkansas, only just barely wounded. And its supporters vowed to be back. And they are. (They're trying to get it on the ballot again, as they promised.)

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Medical Marijuana's Support Grows

WHAT A shocking poll. And it has nothing at all to do with The Donald, Dr. Carson, or any of the other presidential hopefuls crowding your television sets.

The political science types at the University of Arkansas have come out with their annual Arkansas Poll, or what they call The Arkansas Poll, that definite article being all the rage these days. Folks working on the poll interviewed 800 Arkies back in October, and found some interesting things. Some were expected: People in Arkansas like Asa!, the president not-so-much, and oppose same-sex marriage.

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These days, it's become fairly square to criticize marijuana and its rush toward legalization. Twenty-three states have condoned the drug in some form, with four permitting recreational use, and Massachusetts is set to vote on permitting it next year. The proposed federal CARERS Act of 2015 would let states legalize medical marijuana without federal interference and demote pot from a Schedule I drug-one with high abuse potential-to Schedule II. The path toward nationwide decriminalization is looking unobstructed.

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CONWAY - A Van Buren County man isn't giving up on his cause, even though the attorney general's office has rejected five proposed ballot titles that would have asked voters to legalize marijuana for various purposes.

Four of Robert Reed's proposals would have provided for voters to decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment allowing for either industrial or agricultural uses and medical uses of marijuana. The other proposal would have let voters decide whether to pass an amendment legalizing all uses of marijuana, including recreational.

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The cousin of a former state police lieutenant admitted Tuesday to a federal judge that in 2013, he sold cocaine that his cousin had stolen from the police property room, unaware that federal agents had him under surveillance.

Lamont Johnson's plea to a charge of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance ( cocaine) was part of a plea agreement in which federal prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges Johnson faced at a jury trial scheduled to begin next week. Those charges included conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, being a felon in possession of firearms and two counts of possessing a defaced firearm.

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Panel gives both sides chance to voice opinions on controversial issue

FAYETTEVILLE - A panel discussion on medical marijuana offered Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams a chance to describe his wife's personal story of how the drug helped her while she underwent chemotherapy treatments for cancer.

Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams admitted that about five years ago, before his wife's diagnosis, he thought advocacy for medical marijuana "was a bunch of smoke and mirrors."

But the panel at the Arkansas Health Disparities Conference at the University of Arkansas also gave a Little Rock doctor, David Smith, a chance to express his concerns about the chemicals in marijuana.

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Wait for it ... wait ... wait for the other shoe to drop, because inevitably it will. The headlines and Internet chatter all scream for the legalization and increased use of marijuana, and I sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure it relieves some physical discomforts, but ... no one knows the long term effect because the primary usage for decades has been illegal and few would admit using marijuana, not even when answering questions for medical research.

The lag between usage and detrimental side effects happens, as they did about 20 years ago when Risperadol came on the market providing amazing results. It became the medical relief of choice with no known side effects (except the exorbitant cost) found in the pre-market launch. That premise changed as the use spread across the country over the years. It still works well ... with some qualifications.

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How many more prisons will we build before we wake up? Intoxication is intoxication. Alcohol, marijuana, prescription drugs, cocaine-there is no difference. People choose to alter their consciousness. Get over it.

Forty years of a war on drugs hasn't reduced the use or abuse of anything. It's time to look past the moralizing and accept reality. Getting high is not a criminal act. What we fear, the force behind prohibition, is the fear that an intoxicated person will harm others.

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Regarding "How We See It: Prison Ideas Offer Hope for Solutions" (Dec. 4): If no one else is willing to spell it out, I will. Much of the overcrowding in Arkansas prisons is caused by state legislators who know they stand a greater chance of getting elected if they take a get-tough-on-drugs stance, and by law enforcement agencies who profit from the war on drugs via federal grant money and asset forfeiture laws. It's in the interest of both groups to broaden the definition of "lawbreakers" to be as inclusive as possible. In other words, the problem is systemic.

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Gov. Mike Beebe of Arkansas, before leaving office in January, plans to issue a pardon to his son, who was convicted of a felony drug offense more than a decade ago.

The governor's decision followed an October recommendation by the Arkansas Parole Board that Kyle Beebe's application for a pardon was "with merit." Mr. Beebe was convicted in 2003 of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, and his sentence included three years of probation.

"At the time of my arrest, I was living in a fantasy world, not reality," Kyle Beebe, now 34, wrote in a letter to his father that was included in his June 21 pardon application. "I was young and dumb. At that time in my life, I felt like I was missing something, and I tried to fill that emptiness by selling drugs."

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