Stranger things have happened, but the chance that Arkansas voters will approve medical marijuana still seems distant.

The issue has been raised in the state before.

Petition drives failed, however, to place the controversial question on the Arkansas ballot.

That changed this year, when Arkansans for Compassionate Care successfully petitioned to present the issue to voters in the Nov. 6 general election.

So experienced had supporters of the measure become they drafted a question that not only attracted suft cient valid signatures but also survived a critical court test.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care turned in well more than the 62,500 signatures required for ballot access.

And, late last month the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the proposed initiated act, which will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot as Issue No. 5.

Now, there is a headon battle between supporters, led by Ryan Denham, campaign director for Arkansans for Compassionate Care, andopponents, who include Fran Flenner, the state drug director, and a number of organizations like the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and associations representing pharmacists, sheriff s and chiefs of police.

While those for it assert the drug’s medicinal value, those against it fear the law presents a gateway to recreational use of marijuana and related crime.

Both sides have managed a lot of earned media attention and will air more advertising in the waning days of the election.

The ballot question itself is several pages long and quite detailed as to what would be allowed within the state of Arkansas. Like other issues, the full text is available on the Secretary of State’s Web site, www.

sos.arkansas.gov/elections.

Even the ballot title is comparatively long, 384 words to be exact,or more than half the length of this column.

The Supreme Court, in evaluating the suft ciency of the ballot title, concluded it informs voters in “an intelligible, honest and impartial manner” as to what is in the proposal.

Many voters are still unlikely to read even the ballot title, but the key elements are right at the top. If passed, the proposal would make medical use of marijuana legal under state law but it also acknowledges that marijuana use, possession and distribution for any purpose remain illegal under federal law.

The rest of the initiated act spells out how patients could get the drug, either from dispensaries or by growing small quantities themselves, plus many other details about regulation of the drug’s use.

The most recent polling on the issue, done by Talk Business and Hendrix College last week, says the measure will fail. Of those polled, 54 percent said they oppose the measure while 38 percent support it. The same question, posed in July, put the issue in a statistical dead heat, with 47 percent for it and 46 percent against it.

That was before the recent spate of locally staged debates on the issue and the appearance of much of the earned and paid media on the question.

There are a couple of much earlier poll results of note.

Back in 2001 and 2004, the Arkansas Poll, which is conducted by researchers at the University of Arkansas, turned up signifi cant support for a generic medical marijuana question.

In 2001, 63 percent of those polled favored the idea. Three years later, the number dropped just a little to 61 percent.

That poll data is old now but the result was surprising at the time, when medical marijuana was less accepted nationwide than it is now.

Although no Southern state has yet to adopt such a law, 18 states and the District of Columbia have now passed some sort of medical marijuana law. Those states are concentrated in the West and in the Northeast.

Will Arkansas be next?

It is not likely, but it’s not impossible.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 10/24/2012