Is the justification behind Issue 6 -- enactment of a law allowing those who need medication -- enough to excuse how Arkansas might legalize medical marijuana?
That's the difficult question for voters still pondering the choice left after the Arkansas Supreme Court found problems last week with signatures gathered for a competing Issue 7.
Unless a last-minute appeal changes things, votes cast for or against Issue 7, the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act, will not be counted.
But votes for and against Issue 6, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016, will count.
For many Arkansans, the only question really is whether they support or oppose state legalization of the drug for medicinal purposes -- details be damned.
They're for it or against it and may not even know much about what is on the ballot.
For others, the decision is not that easy.
Some actually preferred Issue 7's approach. It was a proposed initiated act rather than a constitutional amendment. That's important because the Arkansas Legislature could later alter any aspect of the law initiated by voters. Constitutional amendments generally can't be altered except by another constitutional amendment. Issue 6 is different in that it specifically allows the Legislature to make changes in most but not all of its provisions.
Understand that legislators are elected and are usually disinclined to upend a direct decision by their constituents on anything. So, neither the law nor the amendment would likely have been altered any time soon, if enacted. Besides, lawmakers need a two-thirds vote, a super majority in each house, to change an initiated act or, in this case, the allowable provisions of Issue 6.
Just what is it in the proposed amendment that its backers thought so important that it needed to be embedded in the Constitution and, more importantly, out of legislative reach?
Sections actually legalizing the medical use of marijuana could not be changed by the Legislature. Neither could sections setting the number of dispensaries or cultivation facilities allowed under Issue 6.
Otherwise, anything in the complex law could be changed by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. Those provisions might as easily have been enacted by initiated act rather than constitutional amendment.
This push for legalized marijuana has been a long-standing effort. While some states, such as Arkansas, have only sought to legalize medical uses, others allow recreational use. A big-dollar industry has been spawned for cultivation and distribution of the drug.
Issue 6 provides for "at least 20 but not more than 40 dispensary licenses" to be issued in Arkansas and for "at least four but not more than eight cultivation facility licenses" to be issued in the state.
Those limits -- besides the legalization of medical marijuana itself -- are what backers considered so important that state lawmakers should never be able to change them.
This is constitutional protection for the for-profit enterprises that get those limited licenses to grow and sell medical marijuana. Ka-ching.
You might wonder now who will decide who gets the licenses. That responsibility would go to a newly created, politically appointed Medical Marijuana Commission.
Issue 6 gives the commission specific responsibilities, including the determination of how much marijuana a facility could grow. The amendment assigns other jobs to the state Department of Health and generally leaves regulation and enforcement to the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Division.
Seriously, the details of Issue 6 ought to give voters pause. They may not. But they really ought to.
An aside: Among the reasons the court-killed Issue 7 was preferred by some medical marijuana backers was its nonprofit model. Under the initiated act, medical marijuana would have been distributed for qualifying patients through nonprofit cannabis care centers.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court took that option away.
Voters may have missed one other notable piece of information about this competition of ideas over medical marijuana.
The court challenge of the now-defunct Issue 7 came from supporters of Issue 6.
You might have expected a different reaction, but the Issue 7 backers have now asked their supporters not only to vote for Issue 7 but also for Issue 6.
They want voting to continue for Issue 7 in the off chance that the Supreme Court will reinstate the issue. They want Issue 6 to pass so people who need medical marijuana in Arkansas can get it.
Clearly, they've decided the "why" for legalization outweighs the "how" -- details be damned.
Commentary on 11/02/2016