The former director of the New Mexico agency that oversees that state’s medical marijuana program said Thursday that the language of Arkansas’ medical marijuana initiative more closely mirrors the law in his state than in others frequently condemned by medical marijuana critics.
If the act is approved by voters on Tuesday, Arkansas would join 17 states and Washington, D.C. in legalizing the medical use of the drug, though it remains illegal under federal law to possess or sell marijuana for any reason. Some states, like California, have made it far too easy to obtain marijuana, and their medical marijuana laws have severely undermined law enforcement efforts to combat the illegal marijuana trade, the Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council has warned.
But Arkansas’ regulatory program won’t be like those states, predicts Dr. Steve Jenison, the New Mexico medical marijuana expert.
“It might be more analogous to look at the state of New Mexico than the states of Colorado and California, which I think have a very,very different legislative structure and infrastructure,” he said. “Your bill has a lot of structure. I think it’s very well drafted.”
The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act is Issue No. 5 on the ballot. If approved, it would legalize some medical use of marijuana and require the state Department of Health to set up a system of nonprofit dispensaries to distribute up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana at a time to Arkansans with certain diseases or symptoms.
Also Thursday, Arkansans for Compassionate Care, the group supporting the measure, released the names of 79 doctors who support the measure at a news conference on the state Capitol steps.
On Oct. 24, about 20 doctors gathered in Little Rock to announce their opposition.
Dr. Clint Evans, who works in the Baptist Health emergency room, said Thursday that he is disappointed in the doctors who oppose the act.
“Patients get benefit from this, it’s very clear,” Evans said at the news conference. He said heconsistently sees patients who have chronic pain and can’t get relief from other medications.
Family Council Action Committee Executive Director Jerry Cox, who opposes the act, said he thinks the doctors who support the act will be the ones to certify that a patient has a qualifying condition.
“There’s a relatively small number who end up writing all the notes. ... So I’m not surprised that there are a small number of doctors who support it,” Cox said by phone after the news conference.
The committee has vocally opposed the measure, often comparing it to Colorado or California, where there have been problems with the number of businesses allowed to sell marijuana and the number of patients who use it.
“Proponents of Issue 5 have said repeatedly it is much stricter than Colorado’s law. Well, we have compared the two, and we are not sure that’s the case. In fact, Colorado’s marijuana laws may be more tightly written than Issue 5 in some significant ways,” the committee said in a news release issued Wednesday.
It points to Colorado’s requirement that a minor be diagnosed by two doctors before being eligible for a registration card. Arkansas’ proposal requires diagnosis from one doctor. And that Colorado gives police access to the patient registry, while Arkansas’ proposal requires police to get the information from the Health Department.
Jenison, the chairman of New Mexico’s Medical Cannabis Advisory Board said Arkansas’ proposal is comparable to New Mexico’s law.
“I was amazed ... by how similar the draft Arkansas legislation is to New Mexico’s. In fact, it is more complete insome ways than ours,” Jenison said after Thursday’s news conference. “As opposed to some of the very early medical cannabis programs that arose from citizen’s initiatives, where the parameters of the program were far less well defined, and so people were sort of implementing without a lot of structure.”
In a fiscal impact statement released Oct. 26, the Arkansas Health Department estimated it would cost between $3.29 million to $6.38 million to implement the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act. The annual cost of staff and technology to oversee it would be between $2.7 million and $5.8 million.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/02/2012