An example of one raw cannabis flower product sold at Natural Relief Dispensary in Sherwood. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
Supporters of changes to Arkansas’ medical marijuana industry submitted petitions with 38,933 additional signatures to Secretary of State John Thurston’s office Friday in hopes their proposed measure qualifies for the November ballot.
The ballot question committee Arkansans for Patient Access submitted 108,512 signatures July 5. Thurston’s staff verified that 77,000 were from registered voters, totaling 85% of the 90,704 signatures needed for a constitutional amendment to qualify for the ballot, according to a July 31 letter to APA.
State law allows ballot question committees 30 days to collect more signatures if the initial submission contains at least 75% of the overall required number of valid signatures and 75% of the required number from at least 50 counties.
The total number of signatures submitted July 5 and Friday came from all 75 counties, APA said in a news release.
“We are excited to move one step closer to having the amendment certified,” committee member Bill Paschall said in the news release. “People across the state have enthusiastically signed petitions and told us they are excited to vote for an amendment that will expand patient access and lower the cost of obtaining and keeping a patient card.”
Thurston’s office will start processing the signatures Tuesday because Monday is a holiday, spokesman Chris Powell said.
Arkansans voted to legalize cannabis for medical use in 2016, though the first products were not sold until 2019. The state now has 37 licensed dispensaries and a billion-dollar medical cannabis industry.
If approved, the proposed amendment would include physician assistants, nurse practitioners and pharmacists as medical professionals who can certify patients for medical marijuana cards. Health care providers also would be allowed to conduct patient assessment via telemedicine, and providers would be permitted to qualify patients based on medical need, according to the initiative, rather than the existing 18 qualifying conditions outlined by the state.
The amendment would also allow patients and designated caregivers older than 21 to grow up to seven mature marijuana plants and seven young plants. The measure also would eliminate application fees for patient cards and extend the term of the card to three years.
Supporters have said the proposed amendment will especially help Arkansans with lower incomes and people living in rural areas where access to primary care physicians is limited.
“Arkansans for Patient Access will work tirelessly until the polls close on November 5th to inform and educate voters,” the news release states. “We are confident that when they learn the details of this amendment, they will enthusiastically support it.”
APA expressed concern earlier this month about a potential barrier to the verification of signatures collected during the cure period.
Thurston told the committee on Aug. 8 that his office would not count signatures collected during the cure period by paid canvassers because a company that hired paid canvassers had signed legally required paperwork instead of the sponsor of the amendment. Thurston used this same argument against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have created a limited right to abortion.
Supporters of the abortion amendment challenged Thurston’s decision, but the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed with his assessment on Aug. 22, keeping the abortion measure off this year’s ballot.
APA intervened in the court case and criticized Thurston in court documents for “making the same eleventh-hour about-face” with an “erroneous and out-of-the-ether” interpretation of the law regarding paid canvassers.
“APA strongly disputes that it failed to comply with this statute and, if necessary, will challenge your position in the appropriate forum,” wrote attorney Stephen Lancaster of the Wright Lindsey Jennings law firm in a Friday letter to Thurston submitted with the additional signatures.
Lancaster said he expects Thurston not to count some of APA’s new signatures.
“However, in the interest of time and preservation of taxpayer dollars, we ask that any signatures not counted… be nonetheless validated by your office so that the Arkansas Supreme Court can better assess whether the initiative should be certified to the ballot,” Lancaster wrote.
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