State Rep. Webb backs medical-marijuana measure

LITTLE ROCK - A state legislator who co-chairs the Joint Budget Committee says she supports a ballot measure that would legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas.

Democratic Rep. Kathy Webb of Little Rock on Monday said she voted for the proposal that, if approved, would make Arkansas the first Southern state to legalize medical marijuana. Webb cast her ballot on the first day of early voting.

Webb said she didn't plan to campaign for the measure.

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Mary Grace walked through a dark living room to the bedroom in the back. There's an air conditioner in the front living room window blowing smoky, musty air throughout. With every wall being made of cinder block painted grayish-white, it doesn't take much imagination to see this place for what it was 30 years ago, a chicken house. Junk clutters every surface. Mary Grace has had her name changed for privacy.

"Hey Mary," Mark the dealer greeted, pausing his attention from an episode of "Futurama," while lying on his bed, that also serves as a joint rolling station. Grace, 28, strode silently to the bathroom, shut the door and vomited. There was silence while she put herself back together. The water ran for a moment and then she came out. "What's up?" she asked.

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On Nov. 6, Arkansas voters will decide the fate of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act. They will base their decisions on faces more than facts.

Here are the facts: Passage would allow certain Arkansas patients to obtain a doctor's written certification for up to 2.5 ounces of useable marijuana every 15 days. The act lists 17 medical conditions making a person eligible to use the drug. The Arkansas Department of Health can approve more.

Patients will be able to obtain the marijuana at dispensaries operated by nonprofit groups. Those who live more than five miles from a dispensary can grow up to six plants in an enclosed, locked facility. The patient can designate a caregiver to obtain the marijuana and grow the plants for them.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Talk show host Montel Williams on Thursday accused opponents of an Arkansas ballot measure that would legalize medical marijuana of resorting to "racist" imagery with a television ad featuring an African-American actor portraying a drug dealer.

Williams, an outspoken supporter of medical marijuana, appeared Thursday at the state Capitol alongside members of Arkansans for Compassionate Care, which is campaigning for Arkansas' legalization measure on the Nov. 6 ballot. He criticized an ad aired by a conservative group opposing the proposal.

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Medical marijuana more than name implies

After several attempts in previous years to get on the Arkansas ballot, supporters of legalizing medical marijuana found success in 2012 - a feat considering it was a difficult year for citizen-led ballot initiatives. No other effort won ballot approval.

Although the measure is coming to a vote, the hurdle it faces is a tall one. The idea of legalizing marijuana is not a natural fit in a Bible Belt state such as Arkansas. The word medical in front of it gives it a little better standing.

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On Nov. 6, Arkansas voters will decide the fate of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act. They will base their decisions on faces more than facts.

Here are the facts: Passage would allow certain Arkansas patients to obtain a doctor's written certification for up to 2.5 ounces of useable marijuana every 15 days. The act lists 17 medical conditions making a person eligible to use the drug. The Arkansas Department of Health can approve more.

Patients will be able to obtain the marijuana at dispensaries operated by nonprofits. Those who live more than five miles from a dispensary can grow up to six plants in an enclosed, locked facility. The patient can designate a caregiver to obtain the marijuana and grow the plants for them.

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The fight is underway in earnest for voter approval of the initiated act to allow sick people to obtain marijuana for medical use, with doctors' approval, at state-regulated dispensaries. In recent days, the Family Council Action Committee unveiled a wholly dishonest and blatantly racist TV ad against the act, and the Arkansas Baptist Convention launched an email campaign, also filled with misinformation. In response Chris Kell of Arkansans for Compassionate Care, the committee working for passage of the measure, offered the following point-by-point rebuttal of the opposition. Read an extended version with citations from the act itself at arktimes.com/medicalmarijuana.

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LITTLE ROCK - The Arkansas Pharmacists Association announced its opposition to a ballot proposal to legalize marijuana for medical use Monday, saying it omits pharmacists and creates a direct conflict with federal law.

"The APA believes that if marijuana is legalized in Arkansas, pharmacists should be the health care professionals who dispense the medication, not unlicensed, untrained individuals who work in 'marijuana dispensaries,'" APA Executive Vice President Mark Riley said in a release. "Pharmacists are highly educated health care professionals who understand the pharmacology of medications, including marijuana. There are Arkansas licensed pharmacies in 74 of Arkansas's 75 counties providing access for patients throughout the state."

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Medical marijuana has been an incredibly controversial topic for years. Many government officials believe that because marijuana is perceived as addictive, it should stay illegal in the U.S.

On Nov. 6, Arkansans will be able to vote on Issue Five, otherwise known as the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Question, to ultimately decide if Arkansas should legalize marijuana for medical use.

Whether or not you personally would benefit from medical marijuana, it is an important decision to make nonetheless.

If Arkansas legalizes marijuana, the national government would be one step closer to saving up to $13.7 billion per year by not having to enforce the current prohibition on the drug and adding a tax at the rates similar to alcohol and tobacco, according to the Huffington Post.

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Last Thursday, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the initiative seeking to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas may stay on the ballot.

This means that on Nov. 6, we will get the chance to decide whether Arkansas becomes the first Southern state to legalize the drug for medicinal purposes. The ruling comes after a conservative action group brought suit against the measure, claiming its title could mislead voters.

This debate is not new -- many students have discussed this issue at great lengths in conversation and in The Herald, and many have expressed their support for the issue.

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LITTLE ROCK - The Arkansas Supreme Court decision to keep medical marijuana's legalization on the ballot introduces some unpredictability to the November election and shifts attention to an issue that might not be easily defined by party labels.

That's no small feat for an Arkansas election dominated by predictability when it comes to national politics and partisan bickering when it comes to the state level. With Republicans aiming to win control of the state Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, this may be one of the few issues where Arkansas voters won't hew to traditional party lines.

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Arkansas could become the first state in the South to legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes in November, after the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a ballot measure advanced by activists.

The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act was challenged by state conservative groups that argued the ballot measure's summary was misleading and incomplete, for example, by not specifying which illnesses a person would need to have to legally obtain the drug. The groups asked the court to remove the measure from the ballot.

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Title Informs in Intelligible, Honest Way, Opinion States

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a proposed initiated act to legalize the medical use of marijuana is sufficient to appear on Arkansas' Nov. 6 ballot.

If approved, the measure would establish a system for cultivating and distributing marijuana for qualifying patients through nonprofit dispensaries. Registered and qualified patients would be allowed to have up to 21/ ounces of usable marijuana without being prosecuted by the state.

Patients could qualify if they have cancer, glaucoma, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/ AIDS), or hepatitis-C.

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In November 2007, Eureka Springs voters passed an ordinance directing police and prosecutors to make possession of less than an ounce of marijuana a low law-enforcement priority. Under Arkansas law, such possession is a Class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

At that time this ordinance made the news everywhere, even though it had no effect in actual law or practice and was basically a symbolic gesture by the people of the city toward law enforcement -- a way of saying, "Enforcement of this law is not as important to us as many other things you might be spending your law-enforcement monies on. Please do those things instead."

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A lawsuit by the Family First Foundation could keep a medical marijuana initiative off the ballot in November.

Bill Wheeler, executive director of Family First, said he hoped the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled to remove the initiative from the ballot based on "ambiguities" in how the initiative was written.

"Normally, an initiative will be about two pages long and this one was 10 to 12 pages long," Wheeler said. "The ballot title is a few hundred words and that is what people look at when people vote. You got an 8,000 word act and that is supposed to be reduced to brief and concise ballot title, but the ballot title does not reflect everything in the act."

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The home state of the president who didn't inhale has become an unlikely front in the battle over medical marijuana.

This fall, Arkansas will be the first Southern state to ask voters whether to legalize medical uses for pot, a move that offers supporters a rare chance to make inroads in a region that has resisted easing any restrictions on the drug.

The state's top elected officials and law enforcement agencies oppose the idea, but legalization groups hope the referendum shows that medical marijuana is no longer solely the domain of East Coast or Western states.

"This is an issue that hasn't been ready for primetime yet in the South. It may be that it's starting to be, and that's a good thing," said Jill Harris, managing director of Drug Policy Action.

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LITTLE ROCK-A coalition seeking to have a medical marijuana proposal struck from Arkansas' November ballot told the state Supreme Court on Friday that backers didn't do enough to make sure voters know medical marijuana users could still face prosecution under federal law if the measure passes.

The Coalition to Preserve Arkansas Values, which is made up of several conservative groups, asked justices to either remove the measure from the ballot or order the state to not count any votes cast for it. Election officials last week approved the ballot proposal after verifying that supporters had turned in enough signatures from registered voters.

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LITTLE ROCK - Election officials on Wednesday approved placing a proposal to legalize medical marijuana on the November ballot, as supporters aimed to make Arkansas the first southern state to approve the drug for some conditions.

The secretary of state's office said Arkansans for Compassionate Care turned in enough signatures to qualify the proposed initiated act for the November ballot. The proposal needed at least 62,507 signatures from registered voters to qualify. The secretary of state's office said it had verified more than 69,000 signatures from the group.

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One proposal was lost in the flurry of petition-gathering this summer for initiatives ranging from ethics reform to casinos.

Advocates for the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act - which would make Arkansas the 18th state, and the first in the South, to legalize personal use of marijuana for the purposes of medical relief - got an early start, but have had little visibility over the past few months.

While lacking the big money or the big names attached to other direct democracy initiatives this season, the group calling itself Arkansans for Compassionate Care was able first to turn in the necessary number of signatures to reach an extra 30-day "cure" period, and then submitted an additional 74,000 signatures last week. Given that the percentage of valid signatures to place the act on the ballot has been high from the get-go, it seems likely that medical marijuana initiative is on its way to the November ballot.

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Earlier this week in Little Rock, members of Arkansans for Compassionate Care, a group devoted to legalization of medical marijuana, scored a victory when the group submitted 65,000-plus signatures to get the measure on the November ballot. This means in November you will likely have the chance to vote whether to allow medical marijuana to be prescribed by physicians for those suffering for qualifying illnesses or for the dying.

This subject is of historic interest in Eureka Springs. In 2006, 598 Eurekans voted for and 345 voted against making possession of marijuana and paraphernalia a low priority for law enforcement, passing the ordinance by a healthy 63.41 percent. That ballot initiative lacked much in the way of teeth but was considered a way of showing the community's intent toward the subject matter.

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