SPRINGDALE — A group of Northwest Arkansas politicians, law enforcement officials and a doctor turned out Friday to oppose a ballot measure to legalize medical marijuana, saying Issue No. 5 is fraught with legal and medical problems.
Led by state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers, about a dozen leaders joined a Little Rock-based advocacy group in a news conference Friday afternoon urging voters to reject the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act.
If voters approve it Nov. 6, the act would legalize some medical use of marijuana.
The act requires the Arkansas Department of Health to set up a system of nonprofit dispensaries that would provide marijuana to qualifying patients who have certain symptoms or diseases.
Bledsoe told reportersgathered at the Jones Center in Springdale that she had three main problems with the ballot issue.
“We don’t know that much about the side effects of marijuana,” she said, saying that weakens proponents’ argument that the act would alleviate patients’ pain and suffering.
Bledsoe also contended the proposed law provides no accountability or patient follow-up.
Thirdly, she said, state lawmakers are repeatedly told on issue after issue that “state law does not supersede federal law.”
“But ladies and gentleman, what we have here today is a state law that usurps federal law,” Bledsoe continued.
She referred to a provision in the ballot title wording, right after the first clause: “An act making the medical use of marijuana legal under Arkansas state law, but acknowledging that marijuanause, possession, and distribution for any purpose remain illegal under federal law.”
Jerry Cox, executive director of the Little Rock-based Family Council Action Committee, contended the ballot said too much.
“This measure is nearly 9,000 words long,” Cox said, adding that by his count it was 8,700 words.
The ballot title explains the act would set up a system of nonprofit dispensaries, which “localities” would be able to limit, for qualified patients and the patients’ designated caregivers. The patients, caregivers and the dispensaries “shall not be subject to criminal or civil penalties or other forms of discrimination.”
The act’s opponents attacked another provision explained in the ballot title whereby the qualifying patients or designated caregivers were authorized to engage in “limited cultivation” of marijuana if the patient lives more than 5 miles from the nearest nonprofit dispensary.
One of the opponents featured at the news conference, Benton County Judge Bob Clinard, told others afterward that in a rural state like Arkansas, the number of patients living more than 5 miles from a dispensary - who thus could grow their own marijuana - could be quite numerous.
Cox had said earlier, during the news conference, that the law appears to say a patient could get a card for marijuana and renew it quite easily.
“About like getting a fishing license,” said Cox, whose Family Council Action Committee is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. It is the “associated” political arm of the conservative Family Council, a 501(c)(3) research and policy group for which he also is executive director.
Steve Lowry of Fayetteville, a former resident agent-incharge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Fort Smith and Fayetteville offices, also spoke Friday.
“If this was truly a medical issue, there is already the FDAapproved drug, Marinol, which is synthetic THC,” Lowry said, referring to the active ingredient in marijuana. “The difference being that the Marinol does not create a high.”
Bledsoe’s husband, Dr. James Bledsoe, also spoke, saying Marinol has a side effect and a cost that can make it prohibitive in some cases.
“It costs a little more than $4 per capsule,” he said, referring to a 2.5 milligram dose. Its most severe side effect is syncope, in which a person passes out.
Still, Bledsoe, a Rogers general surgeon, said marijuana is a dangerous drug that can elevate the heart rate and that the side effects have not been effectively explored in clinical trials, unlike the Marinol.
“It’s a 70 percent higher chance that you will get cancer of the lung compared with cigarettes,” he contended of marijuana smoking, though he acknowledged the lack of clinical trials that could support marijuana’s safety also make it difficult for doctors to back up claims of harm.
The event drew no proponents of the act.
Arkansans for Compassionate Care has said previously that the benefits to patients suffering from cancer treatments or other pain-causing conditions outweigh opponents’ arguments.
On Wednesday, a group of physicians in central Arkansas came out against the act, saying they are concerned about possible medical ramifications of proposed legalization, such as drug interactions, lack of proper testing and that marijuana wouldn’t be controlled adequately.
But other physicians have favored the drug, such as Dr. David Crittenden of Fayetteville.
In July, Crittenden told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the lack of studies in the U.S. is because the government hasn’t provided enough funding for researchers to study marijuana.
On Thursday, he told the newspaper he believed medical use of marijuana would be “far better” for patients than the chronic use of opiates.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/27/2012