Just when it looked like Arkansas' medical marijuana experiment was going to pot, there's the possibility people with qualifying conditions might get their chance for relief in 2019.
Since voters in November legalized four casinos in Arkansas, many of the state's residents have laid odds that casino gambling would happen before anyone with a qualifying medical condition would get to inhale or ingest a potential form of relief for their symptoms.
What’s the point?
Arkansas continues its prescription for medical marijuana as a slow political process.
It's been more than two years since voters legalized medical marijuana and a system to grow and dispense it. Arkansas' progress on implementing the voter's wishes has been, shall we say, laid back, with critics suggesting resistance from state leaders was purposeful and based on their opposition to marijuana's availability.
That's speculation, but it's funny how easy it is for the tortoise-like pace of the process to lend support to the conjecture. At times, it has seemed the will of 53 percent of voters in 2016 was being thwarted by folks from the remaining 47 percent.
It's just as likely implementation was hampered by the way medical marijuana reached the ballot. It didn't bubble up through the institutions of government. It was an act placed on the ballot by petition of the people, so nobody within the governmental structures took ownership of the issue. Had this been a vote on, say, highway funding, you can bet plenty of state bureaucrats would have been busy laying the groundwork for rapid action post-election.
The medical marijuana process began way back in 2014 when the attorney general approved the initiative's language then it was nearly two years later it was certified for the ballot. Since voters approved it in 2016, the process has been slowed by regulatory hurdles and litigation over aspects of selecting those who will be licensed to engage in the business of medical marijuana.
For people who believe, or perhaps know through marijuana use, that their symptoms will be relieved or reduced, the wait has seemed excruciatingly longer.
Now, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission has finally selected 32 applications from dispensary businesses that will be spread across eight geographic zones of the state. The Arkansas Department of Health has approved more than 6,700 patients for their medical marijuana ID cards, which authorize those holders to legally purchase, possess and use the drug.
In Northwest Arkansas, future operators of dispensaries are kicking into high gear now that the commission's vote has provided some certainty.
"It's time to break ground and make this happen," said Roger Song, an owner of The ReLeaf Center in Bentonville.
The first medical marijuana from the state's five licensed cultivator sites is expected to be ready in April.
We opposed medical marijuana, but this is a case in which government of, by and for the people needs to effectively carry out the clear wishes of residents.
Still, one legislator has helped demonstrate how Arkansas has turned medical decisions into a political process. Rep. Doug House, R-North Little Rock, has filed a bill in the current session of the General Assembly to more than triple the number of conditions that would qualify a patient for using medical marijuana in Arkansas.
The 18 conditions would grow to 57.
House said his bill aims to keep patients or doctors from lying, so that a patient in need of a medical marijuana ID card can get one.
It seems entirely logical that a state that's legalized medical marijuana would make it available for all conditions with symptoms that can be relieved by its use. But here's what we've come to: Prescriptions for medicine are now being written by politicians, not by doctors.
Under the state's medical marijuana law, doctors do not "prescribe" the drug like they do other medicines. They simply attest that a patient suffers from a qualifying condition -- those identified in state law -- and that the use of marijuana might provide relief.
This is what we get when voters are frustrated with federal law and regulations on marijuana. The Food and Drug Administration ought to be vetting marijuana just like any other drug. Instead, we now get dispensaries pretending to be pharmacies selling medicine that no doctor has prescribed. In other words, we're prescribing medicine for conditions as a political issue, not a medical one.
It's a backward kind of system, which may mean it will seem right at home in our great state.
Commentary on 01/20/2019