Skip to main content

Arkansas Medical Marijuana Signatures Handed In

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #742)
Politics & Advocacy

Proponents of an Arkansas medical marijuana initiative handed in voter signatures by last Friday's deadline and now have an additional 30 days to gather more. They will need it.

Gabe, an Arkansas HIV patient who benefits from medical marijuana and would like his medicine to be legal (arcompassion.org)
Arkansans for Compassionate Care needs 62,507 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot. They handed in 67,885 on Thursday. Assuming an invalidation rate of 30%, which is not unusual, the group will likely have to come up with at least an additional 20,000 or so valid signatures or 30,000 raw signatures.

"Ultimately, we like to get another 40,000 or 50,000," campaign director Ryan Denham told the Associated Press.

State election officials will do a "rough count" of the signatures to ensure that proponents have handed in at least the minimum number necessary to qualify for the ballot. While officials validate the signatures, proponents can continue to collect new signatures up to the 30 day deadline.

The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act would allow up to 30 medical marijuana dispensaries in Arkansas, but cities and counties would be able to ban them. Patients would be able to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, but neither they nor their caregivers could grow it unless the patient resides more than five miles from a dispensary. In that case, the patient or caregiver could grow up to six plants.

The act would allow patients with specified diseases and conditions to register as medical marijuana patients with a doctor's recommendation. The state could add other conditions in the future.

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

Paul Pot (not verified)

 

Hey this is awesome. 

Hope you guys make it!

Do you also get people to fill in enrolment forms to make sure you get friendly voters on the roll as well as getting a valid signature?

Tue, 07/10/2012 - 4:30am Permalink
HomieHogleg (not verified)

Is there a place, online, where I could read the actual language in the petition?

Sat, 07/14/2012 - 11:13pm Permalink

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.